Now that Microsoft (MSFT) can’t have Yahoo! (YHOO), it does not want anyone else to have the portal. Yahoo! has gone to search rival Google (GOOG) to sell some of its advertising inventory. Google can get a better price for it and that could add $500 million per year to Yahoo!’s bottom line over time.
The Microsoft argument is simple, and convincing. According to Reuters, the software company said in an e-mail that the Google-Yahoo agreement would "limit choices for advertisers and publishers" and "destroy a competitive alternative."
The comment has the benefit of being true. Google and Yahoo! are the No. 1 and No. 2 search engines in the US, and together control about 85% of the market. Yahoo! has been clever, saying that it will only offer some of its inventory to Google. That give the deal a illusion of being "non exclusive". But, the relationship is likely to strengthen over time. Yahoo! can save several hundred million dollars by killing R&D on its own search technology.
The people who run the "Save The Whales" non-profit are starting up a fund for Microsoft.
Douglas A. McIntyre