Yahoo and Microsoft have confirmed a 10-year global search advertising deal that the beleaguered internet pioneer hopes will save hundreds of millions dollars as well as generating new revenue.
Microsoft will handle the search technology, while Yahoo will provide the sales force for search advertising.
The software giant will licence Yahoo's search technologies, but Microsoft's recently launched Bing search service will "be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo sites".
While Yahoo's sales teams will sell search advertising, Microsoft's AdCenter platform will handle self-service advertising sales. The deal only covers search advertising, and both companies will retain separate display advertising businesses.
Firing a shot at market leading search giant Google, the partners said the agreement would give advertisers another choice instead of having "to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search".
To allay privacy fears, the two companies said they will only share data necessary to "operate and improve the combined search platform".
More details soon...
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