Tech Crunch is reporting today that Google was just three hours away from having an antitrust lawsuit filed against them by the Justice Department, an action sparked by the proposed Google and Yahoo search advertising deal. Sanford “Sandy” Litvack, who would have been the lead counsel for the government had the lawsuit been carried out, said in the end Google blinked.

“We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day. We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.”

… “It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly,” Litvack says.

Judging from those words, it looks like Google is already considered a monopoly by the Justice Department and they had better toe the line carefully so that there are no antitrust lawsuits in their future.