Can two rivals get married or at least engaged?

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Well this is the hope as far as Yahoo and Google are concerned. The two companies are hoping to strike a new 3 year deal for the sharing of search results.

Rather interestingly this is not a universal or clear cut deal as it will not apply to Europe and even as far as the USA is concerned it still may be vetoed by the Department of Justice and so not go ahead anyway. There is also the added complication that Yahoo is supposed to be affiliated to Microsoft and so it would make for a rather odd ‘engagement.’ Infact, Yahoo and Microsoft already agreed their own terms for a search partnership back in the Spring of this year. Therefore it is unclear when, if and how this will be affected.

Another noteworthy point about this is the apparent indecisiveness of the terms of the contract. Google has said it will pay Yahoo a certain percentage for the adverts that are shown on the Yahoo site. The details of this percentage are unclear however. Obviously it will depend on what is actually shared and the revenue involved, but it gives the impression that it could be absolutely anything (including very little.)

Yahoo have also got some power on their side because according to reports they can decide which searches they want to send to Google and the choice is entirely up to them. Again this gives the impression that anything (including very little or no search sending) is perfectly permissible.

As mentioned above there is still some way to go before this could take place, and there is every chance it could be struck out for competition reasons. Be in no doubt however that this is a pretty big piece of news and it will be very interesting to see how it unfolds.

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