San Francisco - Google and Yahoo are set to drop their proposed ad alliance possibly as early as next week because of antitrust objections by the Justice Department, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The report came a day after officials from the two companies met with regulators and appeared to be unwilling to make the compromises needed to satisfy Justice Department concerns that their combined power would overwhelm the online advertising market.

The deal was announced in June and proposed that Google start selling its search ads throughout Yahoo's US properties.

The demise of the plan would represent another tough blow for Yahoo, which had hoped that the tie-up with Google would help it boost revenues after it rejected a 
47.5-billion-dollar takeover bid from Microsoft. A collapse of the planned venture between the two biggest online advertising companies would deprive Yahoo of as much as 450 million dollars in operating cash flow over a year, according to estimates. (dpa)