No, we need more competition, not less. If Google bought out their closest competitor we'd be screwed. Advertising costs would increase, they could be even more forceful about penalizing sites for whatever reason they think of, and who knows what else. I'd actually like to see the market share spread more evenly among 3 or 4 search engines, then we'd have good competition. It would benefit the user as well as the webmaster.
Google's market cap is around 200 billion, Yahoo around 40 billion. Google has a lot of cash reserves (don't know how much at this moment) but they sure can afford to buy Yahoo.
It would make the internet really boring.. Google is amazing but I don't think that they should own every big website.
Yahoo has faaaaaaaaar too many products that appeal to users. Google is just a search giant. Yahoo won't ho itself.
Google is the best search engine out there, hands down. But no, they should not buy Yahoo. Variety is good, different algorithms are good. Google already owns so many other companies (Youtube, Feedburner, etc. just to name a couple). Google needs more competition instead of trying to just take over everything.
I hope Google will not take over Yahoo after all, Wish Microsoft and MSN/Live will buy it, hope they will raise their offer and try to accomplish the deal.
It's not an issue of mrk. cap. vs mrk. cap. but cash vs mrk. cap. Google doesn't have $40 billion in cash, so they would have to undergo a huge dilutive process.
I hope Microsoft buys Yahoo eventually, that will create two giants in the SE arena , more or less equal giants, more fun this way.