The European Commission has agreed to a partnership signed in the summer of 2009 between Microsoft and Yahoo!. On 29 July the two companies agreed to pool their efforts in the areas of Internet search and online advertising. With a clear objective: to thwart Google.

They lacked the go-ahead from competition authorities. This is done since Thursday, February 18, 2010, a day before the deadline that had given the European Commission. The latter has therefore considered that the partnership was not liable to distort competition on the Internet.
Google holds 90% market

In a releaseThe Commission considers that “Research activities online announcements related to this research from Microsoft and Yahoo! are very limited and their combined market shares remain often below 10%. In contrast, Google has generally market share above 90%. ”

The Commission also believes that this Agreement will not adversely affect the market: search engines, advertisers, publishers … Instead, they hope «strengthening competition in the field of online search and advertising related to this research by allowing Microsoft to compete more effectively with Google. » The world of Internet research has warned.