Report: Yahoo, Microsoft close to deal

Jake Widman
Tuesday, 28 July 2009 03:21

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft and Yahoo are reportedly close to an agreement that would make Microsoft's Bing the search engine for Yahoo in exchange for a share of ad revenue.

The two companies, which have been discussing some form of partnership for what seems like forever but in reality has been little over a year, may announce a deal this week.

As reported in Advertising Age, talks stalled last week over Yahoo's request for a large upfront payment for its search traffic.

But according to unnamed executives, the talks are back on and may be close to a resolution.

In the deal, Yahoo would use Bing as its search provider and receive a share of search ad revenue.

Yahoo would sell search ads on Bing.com directly, as well as on searches from Yahoo.com.

The deal as described would save Yahoo money by not having to maintain its own search engine, and at the same time give Microsoft about 30 percent of the search marketplace.

Issues remaining to be resolved are the value of ad clicks on each site, the amount of behavioral feedback Yahoo would get, and whether Bing would be acknowledged as the search engine on Yahoo.