THE INTERNET SEARCH deal between Microsoft and Yahoo has been approved by US regulators, following its approval by European counterparts earlier this week.
Today the firms said that they've received clearance to go ahead
with the deal, without restrictions, from the US Department of Justice,
and added that they will start to put it in place.
The deal will see Microsoft take over Yahoo's algorithmic search
platforms, while Yahoo will work as the sales force for both companies
premium advertising businesses. In effect, when users perform a search
on either site they will see Bing's search results, surrounded by
contextual and user specific links and advertisements.
"This breakthrough search alliance
means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search
experience," said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. "Yahoo! gets to do what we do
best: combine our science and technology with compelling content to
build personally relevant online experiences for our users and
customers."
The Vole's CEO Steve Ballmer added, "Although we are just at the
beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone. I
believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice,
better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to
advertisers and publishers."
A website has been put together to tell users and customers about
what the deal will mean to them. Unfortunately for Microsoft, when we
visited we were greeted with an application error.
Let's hope they get their merged search operation working better.