Quoting an unidentified source, Reuters said Wednesday that Yahoo and AOL are looking at each other’s book to see where money could be saved or, God willing, made if they pair up although the Wall Street Journal, which pretty much said the same thing Tuesday, claims they going through the exercise despite the fact they’re “not into each other.”

The companies are also reportedly trying to get a handle on how to integrate AOL's content and advertising into Yahoo while Time Warner, which would then get a major piece of the combined operation, has to worry about CEO Jerry Yang and president Sue Decker actually keeping their jobs, their management skills being what they are.

Apparently Time Warner would like to bring in a new face.

Goodness knows what they figure to do with Google's 5% piece of AOL and the AOL-Google search deal, which Microsoft will object to continuing.

Meanwhile, Yahoo's controversial deal with Google - on which a fillip in Yahoo revenues depends - continues to linger in regulatory limbo. One might assume that's having an impact on negotiations.

Since the Justice Department is taking its own sweet time it's assumed the deal will either be blocked or neutered, in which case Yang might Google Microsoft's phone number.

The US Public Interest Group, a consumer organization, has added its name to the lengthening list of folks opposed to the Yahoo-Google deal citing privacy concerns and Republican Congressman Joe Barton is now pressing the DOJ for a thorough investigation of the deal claiming Yahoo didn't answer Congress's questions.

Barton's severe letter to the DOJ said Yahoo's responses "seemed designed to obscure rather than clarify how the Google-Yahoo deal would work" and called its answers when questioned about worries among Yahoo's own people about handing Google "an effective monopoly" a "masterwork of crude redactions."

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