Yahoo!/Microsoft merger cleared by US and EU regulators

The US Department of Justice and the European Commission have officially agreed the merger of Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will provide the worldwide sales force for both companies’ premium search advertising

The IPA welcomed the news; in a statement released today, Mark Fagan, chairman of the IPA Search Group and digital media director, Golley Slater said: “We very much welcome this decision and hope that this deal will provide a more robust competitor in the UK from which clients and consumers can benefit over the forthcoming months and years.”

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said: “Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone.

“I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers,”

Rob Pierre, MD of leading paid search agency Jellyfish, commented: “One of the key points of the Yahoo!/Microsoft deal is that their joint partnership will run through Microsoft’s ad centre. This announcement is crucial for the industry as it offers agencies and companies using search a consolidated platform to work from.

“If it becomes more accessible and actually facilitates their campaigns, then advertisers will start to use it more, thus increasing its revenue stream. This also means that the user gets a better deal with more options and better search results.

“The bottom line is that this deal means Microsoft/Yahoo will become a bigger threat to Google’s market share. It will cause a war of where advertisers put their money.”