Google is hardly an inflationary force in the world. That is unless you are sitting at Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters. Not content with upping the stakes in Silicon Valley's war for talent, the search giant has helped ratchet up the price of key internet assets. Take Yahoo's acquisition of Right Media.

In October, Yahoo spent about $40m on 20 per cent of the company, which auctions non-premium advertising inventory. It is now buying full control at a valuation more than four times higher. That can in part be justified by the synergy opportunities that come with full control. But the sneaking suspicion is that Yahoo was bounced into action at such a high price by Google's recent $3.1bn purchase of DoubleClick.