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Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Gets Go-Ahead From EU, US DoJ

Posted by timothy on from the will-it-blend? dept.

CWmike writes "Microsoft and Yahoo announced Thursday morning that the US DOJ and the European Commission have approved an agreement between the two firms to have the Bing search engine power Yahoo's sites. The companies said that engineers will begin adapting Bing for the Yahoo site 'in the coming days' and that they hope work is completed, at least the US, by the end of this year."

11 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. I think... by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think I support this... I mean, Yahoo and Microsoft of course both suck, but Google needs some legitimate competition in the search market...

    1. Re:I think... by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yahoo CEO Bartz in a statement. "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."

      "Science"? I think Yahoo! took the "Google Labs" thing a little too literally

    2. Re:I think... by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But this is less competition. Yahoo is no longer providing their own search results.

      Google just lost a competitor.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  2. Who will suffer? by nicknamenotavailable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So will this make Yahoo suck like Bing, or Bing actually find pages (I'm interested in) just like Yahoo?

    Every time I've used Bing, I've been disappointed.

    1. Re:Who will suffer? by wealthychef · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I love that a posting that starts out "I refuse to read" is marked up as being "informative." Oh, Slashdot! You make me smile a little.

      --
      Currently hooked on AMP
  3. More choices? wtf? by nicknamenotavailable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FTA

    "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."

    Wait, Two companies combining forces, eliminating the better search engine(IMHO) and then we're told this will result in "more choice"?

    I really don't understand how this could be, but I won't use Yahoo (a mediocre SE. at best) anymore. For me it means less choice.

    1. Re:More choices? wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      currently in online advertising there is ZERO choice, you go with google or you get only a fraction of the audience, by joining up with bing (the better search of yahoo and bing imho) they gain enough market share to be a viable choice, hence there is more choice.

      also don't make the mistake that you are the customer here that is supposed to get more choice, you are googles/bings/yahoo's product, the customers/consumers are the advertisers and they are the ones getting more choice.

  4. Why is it okay for Microsoft? by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google wanted to infuse Yahoo with money to keep them afloat with a search deal. It was immediately killed as an anti-trust violation, and they threatened Google with the possibility of breaking them up if they attempted something like that again.

    So Microsoft infuses Yahoo with money in a search deal and it is approved.

    I know Google has a larger market share than Yahoo, but which of the two companies has been anti-competitive in their business practices?

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  5. Welcome to Google... by iCantSpell · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yahoo users.

  6. it's been good to know you Yahoo by Locutus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    you've been a big part of the internet for many people but as many partnerships like this in the past, you just don't walk away from a deal with Microsoft. It's like that giant slug thing in Stormship Troopers where they suck out your brain thinking it'll make them smarter. It doesn't work but it does kill you. It's been good to know you Yahoo and I hope Mr Icahn is happy knowing he handed you to Microsoft.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
    1. Re:it's been good to know you Yahoo by adolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Whatever.

      Yahoo faded from usefulness just as quickly (or slowly) as search engines became useful (rather than being a glorified text search, displayed in no particular order)). I've been around Teh Intarwebs long enough to remember a time when, if you wanted to find something. It was just a big, human-sorted list of sites. It didn't have everything, but it had a starting point for most stuff. There were lots of other lists in no time, but Yahoo's was the largest and broadest.

      I remember the birth of Altavista, which was the first nail in Yahoo's coffin (there were other early players which contributed, but none of them sucked less than Altavista).

      Ever since, it's just been getting worse for them. Indexes of websites are hardly useful these days. Yahoo tried to branch out, with chat, and news, and forums, and lots of other things... But, ultimately, it seems they're failing because their original focus and purpose has become all but useless, as the slug around the expensive weight of all the other stuff they've tried to do since. When I went there a second ago, I couldn't even find the index anymore in all the noise they have on their front page. (Does it even exist?)

      Google's uncanny usefulness was one of the next nails in the coffin. Bing and other useful search engines, have driven the last spikes.

      It's very interesting to me that, back in Google's infancy, long before adwords, or any ads at all within Google, their chief source of revenue was Yahoo, who used them as their search engine. That's right: Yahoo used to pay Google for search services. And now the two big search engines both want to pay Yahoo for the same thing.

      Buh-bye, Yahoo.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..