Yahoo! Looks to Bing Google

Talks between Yahoo! and Microsoft to make the latter’s Bing the search provider for the former reportedly resumed late last week after stalling over Yahoo!’s request for an upfront payment of several hundred million dollars and revenue guarantees that would total billions of dollars over the course of the deal, AdAge.com reported.

According to AdAge.com, Yahoo! would be allowed to sell search ads on Bing, as well as on its own site, which would give the company more search inventory to sell and make it a bigger player in the search sales front. Yahoo! would also immediately be able to save millions of dollars by not having to maintain its own search infrastructure.

But Yahoo! wants more revenue from searches that originate on Yahoo! and lead to a purchase, as well as for clicks on ads after a search for a brand name. Other points of contention included the amount of data Yahoo! would get and whether Bing would get any branding on Yahoo!, according to AdAge.com.

Tim Cadogan, CEO of ad-serving firm OpenX and former senior vice president of global advertising for Yahoo!, told AdAge.com:

As Bing grows, the first place Bing takes share from is not Google, but the other guys. So Yahoo! is going to lose share unless they have something radical planned.

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