WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton has urged the Justice Department to take a close look at largely unexplored issues of privacy and pricing arising from the pending advertising partnership deal between Internet search goliaths Yahoo! and Google.

In a letter sent Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s ranking Republican member noted that Yahoo! has resisted congressional inquiries into the deal.  “Many of their responses seemed designed to obscure rather than clarify how the Google-Yahoo! partnership would work,” the Texan said. 

Citing seven and a half pages of redactions that were sent in response to requests for an eight-page document, Barton added that “it is unclear why Yahoo! feels such an acute need to hide its actions from the public.”

Click here for the Barton letter to Justice and related correspondence with Yahoo!.