Microsoft and Yahoo!have announced an
agreement that will see Microsoft powering Yahoo! search, while
Yahoo! takes care of premium search advertisers.
The companies are hoping that the deal will enable them to rival
Google. Their
statement says, "Providing a viable alternative to advertisers,
this deal will combine Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so
that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that
dominates more than 70 percent of all search."
Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to Yahoo!'s
core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to
integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search
platforms.
Microsoft's Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and
paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use
its technology and data in other areas of its business.
The 10-year agreement will take 24 months to implement fully and
Yahoo! expects to boost profit by $500m and save $200m.
Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will pay Yahoo! for a
revenue share based on the amount of traffic Yahoo! generates.
The companies say the deal protects consumer privacy by limiting
the data shared between the two, to the "minimum necessary to
operate and improve the combined search platform". The use of
search data shared between the companies will be restricted.
Yahoo!: What our Microsoft deal means to you >>