And neither company will comment on whether the deal, under which Yahoo will
use Microsoft’s Bing globally for search purposes and share the advertising revenue
it generates, would attract the attention of Australian regulators.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) nor the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) last night would not comment on whether the Microsoft/Yahoo arrangement would become a
regulatory issue in Australia.
A spokeswoman for NineMSN told iTWire the Australian market was
unique in the world in that both Microsoft and Yahoo operated joint
ventures with media companies in the online space.
“It is really early days at the moment, and the deal is still subject
to regulatory approval (in the US), and that may have an influence on
whether they (Australian regulators) look at it,” she said.
Ninemsn chief executive Joe Pollard issued a statement lauding the
Microsoft/Yahoo deal, but without saying how it might be implemented
locally.
“Since the global launch of Bing just two months ago, Ninemsn has put
in place ambitious plans to grow Bing in the Australian search market.
We believe that successfully competing in search requires a combination
of innovation, scale and an unmoving focus on satisfying the needs of
the online consumer,” Pollard said in the statement.
“The new Microsoft and Yahoo deal will have a positive effect on Bing’s
trajectory. Although we are still very much in the early stages of
collaboration, the deal will provide more consumers and advertisers
with an innovative and engaging search alternative which is a great
thing for the Australian market,” he said.
The Bing relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft is expected to take
several months to pass through various regulatory agencies in the US,
and would roll out globally in 2010.
A Yahoo7 spokeswoman told iTWire it was too early to know how the tie-up will affect the Australian operations of the companies.
"These kinds of deals can take months to finalise and years to roll out. We are currently working through what this means for the Australian market, until then it is business as usual," Yahoo7 said in a statement.
Ninemsn, Yahoo7: Will Aussie regulators say Bing?
The Australian operations of Yahoo and Microsoft online – the unusually constructed joint-ventures Yahoo7 and Ninemsn – are not yet sure how the 10-year search and advertising deal involving the Bing search engine will play out in the local market.
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