The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), one of those public interest media watchdogs that never cottoned to the whole Yahoogle business, has asked Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the antitrust wing of the Senator Judiciary Committee, to tell the Justice Department to “either oppose or ensure meaningful safeguards” are attached to the pending Google and Yahoo online advertising alliance.

It said in a letter to Kohl dated Thursday that the axis “raises very troubling consolidation and monopolistic issues” given advertising’s “emerging core role as the principal means of supporting online editorial content” and unmodified will inflict “serious competitive harm…on this vital sector of the US economy.”

It figures payments to newspapers will be reduced and journalism will suffer, an argument that the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers made last week in opposing the deal.