This is beginning to feel a bit like Groundhog Day, but someone is putting out these leaks for a reason. Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) could announce an ad outsourcing deal early next week according to a Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) Newswires report at WSJ. Of course, this deal was said to be coming ‘next week’ last week and a couple of weeks before that.

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The difference this time: the news is coming out with out an obvious prompt. The first time, it was leading up to the failed weekend negotiations with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and last time, it was right after Icahn made his move.

And while it’s been reported that Google cooled on the original idea, Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently addressed the prospects of such a deal, saying it could be arranged in such a way as to appease antitrust regulators.