The European Commission is set to approve a prolific ten year search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo to attempt to put an end to the dominance of rival search engine marketing company Google.
Reuters reports that The European Commission, the executive of the EU which is in charge of proposing legislation, upholding the treaties and implementing decisions, is expected to approve of the collaboration by February 19.
Microsoft and Yahoo announced the proposed deal last July which would see Microsoft’s search engine Bing, powering Yahoo’s search engine. In turn, Microsoft would be bound to pay its new business partner nearly 90 per cent of traffic acquisition costs. Meanwhile, Yahoo would be allowed to keep the design of its current search site which has been dramatically loosing ground in the search engine market – holding a mere 17 per cent of total search.
Any arguments against the deal are therefore expected to come from the US, as the EU is seen to disapprove of a market which is dominated by one company. The European Commission is specialised to look at corporate competition issues - so is rumoured to bless the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership wholeheartedly. If the EU does as expected and approve the deal, the ball would be in the court of the US Department of Justice who have also been involved in reviewing the deal.
Eweek.com has reported that the deal is vital to ensure that Microsoft increases its search market share which has continued to rise steadily since it launched Bing last summer. A partnership with Yahoo, would increase the corporation’s market share to approximately 28 per cent.
Advertisers are also positive about the proposed deal as it is likely to generate a price war between Google and Microsoft for search ads.
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