Microsoft, Yahoo Finalize Search Agreement

Joe Quimby writes "Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized and executed their Web-search agreement after five months of deliberation, the companies announced Friday. Microsoft and Yahoo reached a revenue-sharing agreement in July to combine their search businesses. Under the 10-year agreement, Yahoo's Web search would be powered by Bing and Yahoo would retain most ad revenue from its site."

Comments

10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years is a very long time in the Internet world. After all, Google has only existed just slightly longer than 10 years, and look at all it has done in that time.

It seems very absurd to make a deal for that long. Although it gets much traffic, Yahoo! itself is barely relevant today, and Bing hasn't exactly been shown to be a challenger to Google's search results.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[gregarican]

Sooner or later Microsoft will acquire Yahoo!, so the timeframe shouldn't be a factor. I know this move has recently failed, but just sayin'...

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is bing??

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the last name of the sleazy Friend.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[Trepidity]

Bing is a talking bunny, created as the lead character of a semi-popular series of children's books. Yahoo is wisely betting that in this Web 3.0 universe, old-style text search just isn't that relevant anymore: maybe in 1998 internet users were mainly looking for things like a Geocities page with an obsessive-compulsively categorized list of rare postage stamps, but today's convergence culture leverages always-on internet as an integral part of our everyday lives, and search engines must adapt likewise. Since Bing Bunny "tackles [real-world] challenges such as getting dressed, eating breakfast, and going to the park", it's a perfect fit for the forward-looking management team of this joint Microsoft/Yahoo initiative, the rabbit serving as a launchpad to transform 20th-century text-search-as-service into 21st-century search-as-lifestyle-accessory.

Microsoft and Yahoo understand that there's more to life than text on the internet. That's why they're proud to announce, "Getting dressed---it’s a Bing thing!"

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing is a wielder of quintessence an it's strong than Vampires and Werewolves, combined.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[ClosedSource]

"Bing hasn't exactly been shown to be a challenger to Google's search results."

Bing hasn't made much of a dent in Google's market share, but I do note that I've seen Google ads on TV for the first time after Bing came out.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[lanceran]

I don't know what it is, but i definitely know that Bing Is Not Google.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[hairyfeet]

Actually I think MSFT has brilliantly pulled the wool over everyone's eyes with the whole Yahoo Search deal. While I agree with you wholeheartedly that MSFT WILL end up buying Yahoo I do NOT believe it is about search at all, and they are (quite brilliantly) getting everyone to focus on search because even with both combined they will get a much smaller piece of the pie than Google, thus making it less likely to get the regulators screaming.

So what IS it about, you ask? Two words: Web Mail. Last I checked Yahoo was THE #1 Web Mail provider in the USA, and many Asian countries Yahoo Mail is also #1 or a close #2. This will give MSFT tons of data to mine, more ways to push MSFT technology into the cloud and score more customers (Edit Documents sent to you through Yahoo Mail with our new Office Live!) and when combined with the numbers from Yahoo and Live Messenger the deal will give MSFT probably more persistent daily eyeballs than even Google, when the services are added together.

Ultimately I believe Yahoo will be bought by MSFT, and with everyone focused on search there won't be nearly as big a stink as if they let it be known that Mail and Messenger were their real goals, which would give them #1 status as Web Mail provider, and probably #1 on combined instant messaging. So I wouldn't make fun of MSFT too much of they manage to pull this off. It shows that after the Vista debacle they are starting to think long term and are trying to map out a long term strategy to map themselves out a serious chunk of the cloud. If they do manage to get everyone focused on search and get Yahoo acquired without major regulator hassle I would have to give them credit for a move well played. Hell I would say it is a move almost worthy of Darth Gates himself.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[outriding9800]

The sound of found

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[westlake]

Last I checked Yahoo was THE #1 Web Mail provider in the USA, and many Asian countries Yahoo Mail is also #1 or a close #2.

The geek's notions of "relevance" are not always to be trusted:

Yahoo and Facebook have struck a deal that will allow people to log into Yahoo's vast stable of sites using their Facebook credentials. Already there is an overlap between the two sites' audiences.
52 per cent of Yahoo visitors are also visiting Facebook, while 84 per cent of Facebook users also visit Yahoo sites.
Yahoo still maintains one of the most popular collections of sites on the web. These include the photo sharing site Flickr, the careers site HotJobs and its self-branded sports and finance pages.Yahoo strikes deal with Facebook's Connect service

But the endgame of Internet marketing is converting browsers to buyers. Next Jump says that for every 11 people who see one of its ads, one person makes a purchase. In Web commerce generally, 1,000 to 1 is deemed a good performance. Until recently, the Next Jump e-commerce engine was entirely unbranded, working unseen underneath corporate intranets or retailer's rewards Web sites. "We were all white label," Mr. Kim said. "Nobody knew who we were."
But that is starting to change. The Yahoo Deals shopping area now has a Personal Offers site, whose logo says "Powered by Next Jump" -- co-branding similar to the Intel Inside campaign of the big chip maker. The Data That Turns Browsing to Buying

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[dave87656]

What the hell is bing??

Dunno, I'm gunna google "Bing" and find out what it is.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[bluefoxlucid]

They just did. Yahoo is now Bing, with the Yahoo brand. Migration to Bing just happened; these two things are now equivalent, but Bing is probably faster since it's direct.

Re:10 years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time...

[queenb**ch]

In a world where 20 seconds can mean keeping or loosing a customer, a decade is veritable eternity. And I agree with you wholeheartedly about Yahoo/MSFT and it being more about mail and other services. However, I see this as the one combination that is likely to give Google a run for its money. Google, IMHO, is a far greater evil than even the Borg collective. The Borg Collective is watched and monitored and known to be evil. Google purports to "do no evil" all the while your privacy is a vanishing memory. And who are they whoring all this data out to? We don't know. At least with the credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, etc.) you can find out. What happens to it after it gets shared? We don't know. What all is in there? We don't know.

Can any good come of this?

[mikeroySoft]

I fail to see the mutual advantage of this deal.
How will the end user benefit from this at all?

Re:Can any good come of this?

[Nyall]

Yahoo doesn't have to put R&D into search development: there is a nice 800 pound gorilla that is going to do it anyway because that is the temperament of Microsoft.

Microsoft gets some revenue it wasn't going to get because it has such a small market share.

Re:Can any good come of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Bing is quite a bit better a search engine than Yahoo, so the end users win there.

Yahoo gets to line their pockets in what has been a pretty rough economy.

Microsoft gets to stick it to Google and gets access to the elusive Asian market which Yahoo has a large presence in.

Governments around the world get to use this as fodder to extort^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fine Microsoft for millions.

Google gets to wipe its tears with the mega-billions it has made and whimper, "Woe is us."

That about sums it up, thanks for playing Monopoly(tm), come again.

Re:Can any good come of this?

[peragrin]

end users rarely benefit from this kind of deal.

MSFT gets to double their bragging, er market share, yahoo gets money and gets to lay off search developers who weren't keeping up with google and msft anyways.

Re:Can any good come of this?

[LoverOfJoy]

The end users in this case are advertisers. This will result in more eyeballs seeing their ads.

Reclamation of infrastructure

[HockeyPuck]

I'd love to know what's going to become of all of the servers/networking gear that used to power yahoo search. Doubt they'll reformat and install windows/BING on them.

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[MeatBag PussRocket]

as a typical /. reader i didnt read the article, but what makes you think they're gonna get rid of any gear? i could possibly se a few jobs lost, but i dont think they're holding hands to streamline their models, rather they want to try and lay the smack down on the big 'G'

i could see their collaborative effort, sharing source code and such, may yield some sort of search tool that is more of a threat than Google, but tbh they have a steep hill to climb, even jointly. perhaps the venture will allow the two to stop worrying about each other (which i suspect was the intent behind the bid to purchase) so that they can do waht they do best.

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps the venture will allow the two to stop worrying about each other (which i suspect was the intent behind the bid to purchase) so that they can do waht they do best.

Providing search results that are inferior to Google's?

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[MeatBag PussRocket]

well they do provide other services. Microsoft makes lots of things, including Operating Systems in case you forgot. and yahoo? well there needs to be something other than Google out there to dodge monopoly issues. and Wolfram Alpha doesnt count.

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[twiddlingbits]

Nothing happens to them. IIRC, Yahoo Seach is just going to be "powered by Bing" just like many companies internal seach engines are powered by Google. There may need to be some migration to WIndows (If not there already) but that's going to be trivial cost. All the networking equipment is still needed, no one said anythng about closing down data centers on either side. They still got a long way to match Big G, as even if this WAS a combination of Bing and Yahoo it would still be less than 30% market share or about 1/2 the size of Google. Eventually MS will find a way to own Yahoo.

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[TubeSteak]

as a typical /. reader i didnt read the article, but what makes you think they're gonna get rid of any gear? i could possibly se a few jobs lost, but i dont think they're holding hands to streamline their models, rather they want to try and lay the smack down on the big 'G'

Yahoo doesn't need their own search engine anymore.
It stands to reason that they don't need the hardware or coders either.
Which part of "Yahoo's Web search would be powered by Bing" was confusing?

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[Ilgaz]

Perhaps MS has written the engine in true portable way and it will run under FreeBSD Yahoo uses. As you know, MS never had problem with BSD folks and even the license itself. I wouldn't be surprised a bit if MS released some high end software (e.g. Dynamics etc.) on FreeBSD tomorrow. They kinda code for it anyway, I mean they must have learned a lot already thanks to OS X department.

I compile gettext etc. and they keep checking for documented MS languages to support, I don't think they would spare time to some imaginary languages which doesn't really exist :)

Re:Reclamation of infrastructure

[the_arrow]

Yes of course MS will let Yahoo continue using FreeBSD. They did let Hotmail continue using their FreeBSD servers when they bought it, didn't they?

Microsoft monoculture

[Weaselmancer]

Yahoo's Web search would be powered by Bing

One of the advantages of having several search sites is that if one site doesn't find what you're looking for, another site might. That's why it makes sense to have multiple search engines. Now there is no point in going to Yahoo if Microsoft can't find it. Same engine - same results.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[hoytak]

True. This is a sad day for everyone who searches bing and yahoo first before trying something else. All 8 of them.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[foobsr]

All 8 of them.

Slightly odd, but still ... http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/

CC.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[Anonymous Coward]

The convicted monopolist is making moves again. This is the latest step in a long series of M$ plots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo#Acquisition_attempt_by_Microsoft

One step closer to world domination. Sickening.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[MeatBag PussRocket]

that "$" is soooo clever!

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[onefriedrice]

I think hoytak is referring to the number of people who go to bing and yahoo before any other search engine, not the total number of search engines that exist. Get it? It's funny... although probably not too far from the truth. Interesting link though?

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[Tim C]

Isn't it just?

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[hoytak]

Okay, that might make sending sympathy cards a bit harder.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think he meant there are 8 search engines, but there are only 8 people who use yahoo or Bing, considering Google market share

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[Anonymous Coward]

In many cases, Bing gives less relevant search results, and when giving relevant results they tend to be fewer in number than Yahoo. IMHO, Bing is not a mature enough search engine, and if Yahoo is going to be powered by Bing, it may very well be a serious downgrade of the Yahoo search engine.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[ClosedSource]

"The convicted monopolist is making moves again"

Assuming for your benefit that you're not misinformed, who are you referring to?

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[BlueWaterBaboonFarm]

Not that I'm agreeing with him but, I assume he meant that debacle a while back where Microsoft was in court about packaging IE with their OS's and ruining Netscape's market share. Not quite sure though.

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[BlueWaterBaboonFarm]

Found a link

The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system sales and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system

Re:Microsoft monoculture

[AmberBlackCat]

Just imagine somebody who considers their browser to be a search engine. So they search through the search box on Firefox. Then the search box on Opera. Then the search box on Safari. They even try the web browser on their phone. And they keep getting the same results until they try Internet Explorer and finally get something different.

Their search agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

They will both be searching for a way to not get trounced by Google.

Oh dear no

[u64]

Oh dear no!! That's bad news for.. ehm.. no one!
No one use Yahoo nor Bing (i've even put www.bing.com in my hosts)

But frankly Google must have competition from somewhere. Google
is becoming more privicy Evil for every day that goes by. The
non-savvy users are screwed by default.

Re:Oh dear no

[MeatBag PussRocket]

this whole notion that Google is "privacy evil" [sic] kinda bothers me. i dont understand where the issue is. even at their worst if they were data-mining and targeting your habbits to your IP address their ultimate goal is to make it more valuable for their advertisers to advertise there becasue the vendor knows they are likely to et their product in front of somebody thats interested in it.

personally i think its a good thing. i'm going to be bombarded with ads wherever i go on the web or in real life, its just a fact. Google is like NPR, there are ads, but they're not nearly as annoying as listening to whatever top40 clap-trap station is on. additionally, since i've accepted the fact there will be ads foisted upon me wherever i go i'd at least like to be exposed to advertising of products i might actually use. Tampons? dont need em. New Tech? tell me more!

Re:Oh dear no

[Tim C]

The point I think is that it's a huge amount of data for one company to have on each person to use not only its services, but to visit any website that uses its ad services.

Google may not be evil *now*, but will that be true of the next management team, or the one after that?

Re:Oh dear no

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not bombarded by ads. They're not a fact. They just seem that way to you because you've drunk the advertising kool-aid, probably from living in the US.

You make the comparison to NPR. Well, life with Adblock and without cable is like the BBC - there aren't any ads at all. I look outside my window and there aren't any ads there. I drive to work and the only ads I see are a few community ads on the sides of buses. I shop at Safeways and no ads are foisted on me -- the only marketing is on the products themselves. I go out to eat at dinner and there are no ads foisted on me: only the logo and sign of the restaurant. I go to the park for a swim in the lake and there are no ads. I drive to the junkyard to pick up parts for my car and there are no ads. (all this is still in the US, the most ad-infested culture in the world, but the ads are still easy to avoid if you don't buy into them).

Re:Oh dear no

[Ilgaz]

By using it and adding a search engine as Bing who tries to achieve some success to your hosts (127.0.x I guess), you create the monster you mention "Google".

I kept using Yahoo for a long time since I got SICK of the easily hacked Google results and horrible advertising control. Now I end up having only Bing.com as my provider since there are no other CREDIBLE engines left. It is MY right to get frustrated, you can keep on using Google.

I hate MS and their puppets in open source, the MSCE idiots but I have tried Bing to see what did they manage to do after all that work. Result? I was impressed with my local language results, very much and I openly told everyone about it, including open source fanatics I know. Of course, unless MS fixes their culture, 30 minutes downtime like comedy will happen, IE will get "better features" eventually and all will get wasted in that corrupt company. Don't I know it? Still not enough to treat it like some spyware host.

Re:Oh dear no

[Flipao]

Microsoft have been "evil" for years and noone is bothered by it anymore, yet you're having nightmares because Google may turn evil some day?

Somehow people are outraged at Google tracking browsing habits and yet have no problems handing over their private lives to companies like Facebook.

Re:Oh dear no

[BewireNomali]

no. we are bothered by microsoft and google and facebook. and twitter.

Yahoo is still relevant, but...

[IANAAC]

Yahoo is still relevant, but probably not how you'd imagine.

Pretty much any new (and existing) ATT and Comcast accounts use Yahoo for mail services, not to mention they set Yahoo as the homepage that most users don't bother to change.

Re:Yahoo is still relevant, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Comcast uses Zimbra, which is a product that Yahoo bought.

They'll go to Weird Stuff Warehouse

[Animats]

They'll go to Weird Stuff Warehouse, the surplus place near Yahoo HQ. Want a few hundred servers cheap? They have them stacked up.

Dismantling a failed company is routine in Silicon Valley. Big assets are auctioned off by DoveBid. Miscellaneous computers go to Weird Stuff. Furniture and partitions go to Consolidated Office Outfitters. In less than a month, the building will be empty and ready for rental.

I believe the term is...

[Aurisor]

"Confederation of Dunces"

Have I misunderstood

[Pop69]

or has Yahoo search now ceased to exist and is now just a brand name for Bing search ?

Is this some way Microsoft have found of getting round anti trust by setting the default search in IE to Yahoo not Bing thereby avoiding the accusation that they are yet again trying to illegally leverage a monopoly in one area to create one in another ?

Re:Have I misunderstood

[onefriedrice]

Is this some way Microsoft have found of getting round anti trust by setting the default search in IE to Yahoo not Bing thereby avoiding the accusation that they are yet again trying to illegally leverage a monopoly in one area to create one in another ?

I don't think the default search engine in IE has ever been an antitrust issue that anyone has ever cared about. But now that they're partnering with Yahoo, let's make it seem like it is? You do those of us who don't use Microsoft products a disfavor by trying to turn everything into some sort of evidence that Microsoft is the spawn of evil. They do enough unethical things that we don't need to cheapen our position by trying to fabricate more. You make our side seem desperate and irrational, and believe me we're not.

Re:Have I misunderstood

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess that microsoft would put some sort of "Powered by Bing" logo near the search box, so I don't think that it will even be the brand name of the search anymore.

Re:Have I misunderstood

[Trepidity]

I don't think the default search engine in IE has ever been an antitrust issue that anyone has ever cared about.

Well, to be fair, Google did actually complain about that in 2006...

Damn I like Yahoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Nooooo! Yahoo is the only way to search for results in pages pre-2005. Google won't match those pages even if you type the exact title of the document and an exact phrase on the page. (That's a generalization, but seriously, I can find things in a few clicks at Yahoo from old websites like band pages I routinely used in 2002) How will I find information from pages that stopped being updated a long time ago, and did you know that sometimes people lose their bookmarks, and static information isn't invalid information? Goodbye, web that I grew with...

Two irrelevants joining will remain irrelevant

[LibrePensador]

Yahoo by making itself technologically dependent on Microsoft for 10 years has given up on search. This effectively puts Yahoo out of business. It's a golden parachute for Yahoo's executives but jeopardizes any chances that Yahoo will ever be able to play in the search business again.

As for Microsoft, it allows microsoft to gain instantly a few percentage points in web search, which should allow them to extract higher ad fees.

Microsoft is patient and they hope that they are buying 10 years with which to figure out how to bring down Google. They have enough money, but when it comes to the web, I think Microsoft is largely irrelevant.

If it wasn't for their desktop monopoly, nobody would even care about anything LIVE. They shove that stuff down users throat every time a user tries to download messenger, which they are only interested in because of the network effects that allowed Messenger to become relevant in the first place. I remember when no one even knew what messenger was and people hated it initially, but it kept popping up after every single XP install and telling people that they needed an account and enough people fell for this crap.

Only another Google-like startup could outgoogle google, but it certainly won't be Microsoft or Microsoft and Yahoo's dead skeleton.

Re:Two irrelevants joining will remain irrelevant

[ClosedSource]

"Yahoo by making itself technologically dependent on Microsoft for 10 years has given up on search. This effectively puts Yahoo out of business."

No, this keeps Yahoo in business.

Re:Two irrelevants joining will remain irrelevant

[Etherized]

Indeed, it buys them time. How much time, I'm not sure about.

Clearly, Yahoo! has decided that they simply can't compete on search. Why not let MS chase google, they figure, and take a cut for simply lending them the Yahoo! name. In the meantime, that removes a lot of search related R&D and infrastructure headcount, and they can free up those resources to chase the next big thing (well, or lay them off).

This is a desperate move, though. It only works out if people continue to use Yahoo! branded Bing search, and it's unclear to me why anybody would do so. Yahoo! needs to find some kind of value add that lures people to use their Bing frontend, otherwise this deal buys them months, not years. Indeed, this is why it's such a good move from MS - it gradually migrates people to Bing and kills off the Yahoo! brand, without them having to buy Yahoo! and shut them down directly. There's always the *chance* that Yahoo! will recover, but I'm sure MS is assuming that they won't.

Re:Two irrelevants joining will remain irrelevant

[Trepidity]

Yahoo does have some built-in market share that'll let them struggle on for a while as long as their search isn't terrible, which is what they might be hoping for from the Bing backend. They have huge installed bases of users of lots of their other services (email, mailing lists, now Flickr), and the Yahoo search bar shows up at the top of the page for some of those services (though not, at least for now, on Flickr)--- check out the top of the Yahoo Groups page, for example. If they can keep those services all steady with reasonably large user bases, they'll have a decent stream of search users even if nobody purposely goes to search.yahoo.com.

Re:Two irrelevants joining will remain irrelevant

[Mongoose Disciple]

You're simplifying this all too much.

First, because trying to be the leader in search was never really Yahoo's game. They were about being a web portal -- basically, they wanted to be your home page. Personally, I prefer a clean home page for searching like Google's, and I suspect a lot of the people who read Slashdot do too, but an awful lot of people don't.

To that end they went after a lot of different things. Webmail, video, fantasy sports leagues, photo hosting (Flickr), games, news, etc. I'm not saying that's necessarily been a winning strategy for them as a company, but what they were trying to do was never strictly about search.

Microsoft, too, has a very multi-pronged business plan, even for the web. Sure, we've seen their mostly unsuccessful efforts in the search, web portal, webmail, and instant messenging areas, but there's also IE, ASP.NET, Silverlight, and too many other things to count, to say nothing of all the more indirect efforts like the XBox which start to bleed back over into the online space. In a lot of these areas they've taken on more successful established players or technologies and fought to gain market share, something that's been good for everyone since it's forced those established options to become better to stay ahead. Microsoft is the kind of company that will try to compete in a hundred different arenas, knowing that someone else might falter and that, even if not, maybe you can still make something good out of being #2 in a couple related areas.

Not the first time

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yahoo has historically had a number of search providers other than themselves. Starting in 1996 with Altavista. They used Google as well at some point, maybe Inkitoni too? Whatever makes yahoo whatever yahoo is, isn't the search engine.

Re:Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they used Inktomi for a long time. And then they bought Inktomi and continued to use the search untill now I think. Yahoo was also one of the initial investors in Google, to make sure there were search engines available to power their search.

An yahoo now sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Within 48 hours of the deal, Yahoo had already been corrupted as badly as Bing is. Search results are twisted to not show anything critical of M$, and instead give results that include M$ FUD. Goodbye Yahoo!!

Oh, SNAP!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF!

I use Yahoo

[Ritchie70]

I use Yahoo, I just don't use it for search..

But if you want weather, movies, or cute cat videos, they're OK.

Google, that Safari fascist?

[Ilgaz]

I don't see them complain about the ridiculous default search engine under OS X/Safari default browser which you have to hack a signed binaries resources rendering it unsigned to change it from Google to anything else.

That is not Firefox I talk about or not Opera, both lives with the money they get from Google and yet they allow very conveniently to change them. That is $130 (or $30 upgrade) Operating System's default web browser. Add more to the frustration? Windows Safari _allows_ you to change it to Yahoo. iPhone one too!

I know it is not Google to blame on this matter but they should know that, not everyone doesn't like their engine and policies and if Safari case happens, they basically hate them. They should talk to those greedy Apple suits to offer a way to change it, without ridiculous hacks.

Someone needs to tell Ballmer

[Flipao]

That while they were so busy spending billions to scrape a few points in market share back, Google were busy making sure they were the default search engine in the most popular mobile devices for the next 10 years: Android and the iPhone, Microsoft's mobile platform is all but dead in the water, and even then, devices like HTC's Windows Mobile smartphones also default to Google.

They're so busy catching up they have no idea what beyond the next corner.

Re: Lots of garbage creation

[xiando]

I'd love to know what's going to become of all of the servers/networking gear that used to power yahoo search. Doubt they'll reformat and install windows/BING on them.

TFA story is:

Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized and executed their Web-search agreement after five months of deliberation, (..)

The servers and networking gear is already obsolete and will likely soon cause major amounts of pollution when it is burned in order to extract gold, copper, aluminum and other raw materials.

Mod parent down!

[WiiVault]

Dude what the fuck are you talking about? Clicking the search box gives me the option of about 10 different searches including Yahoo! Seriously get a life and stop being an Apple hating fool.

I agree, Bing certainly is not Google...

[lacaprup]

...Bing gives me money back for opening up their page before I go to eBay and buy stuff. I can't think of anything Google does that is remotely as useful as that.

oldfag posts old-ass link

[Anonymous Coward]

yawn. It's bedtime, grandpa.

XD

Where are those DOJ regulators when you need'm...

[makinsky]

MS started crushing the Google-Yahoo deal months prior to the DOJ antitrust division's meeting through their political lobbying and the usual tactics, it concluded by DOJ picking that deal apart. Now lets see how the new office deals with all those MS donations and astroturfing against Google. Lets see if DOJ kicks this deal too. Why would anyone want to strengthen the second biggest search-engine market competitor and antitrust-laws-breaking firm by giving them the bigger market share and allowing to take out a smaller one?! Lets really take a good look at Obama's office' DOJ decision on this one...