Google Sits Quietly as Microsoft Vies for Yahoo!

"I think there's nothing that Google can offer," Chowdhry says.

It is still debatable how much of a dent a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo! will even make on Google, which in January captured 56.9% of the search market, compared with Yahoo! with 19% and Microsoft with 12.1%, according to Nielsen Online.

But Lindsay says the average Google shareholder will likely be disappointed if the company doesn't raise a stink at some point.

"From the Google perspective, it has a right to challenge a structural change in the market," he says.

At the same time, a protest from Google could add to any delays that a deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft might face. And that could in turn buy Google more time to tweak its business strategy if a newly merged company comes to being.