Yahoo announced yesterday that it had prevailed in an appeal of a $2.75 judgment in Mexico obtained by former joint venture partners. Those former partners, Worldwide Directories and Ideas Interactivas, sued Yahoo for breach of contract and damages. The case arose from the termination of a contract between Yahoo de Mexico and Ideas Interactivas. In roughly 2002, the companies agreed to jointly produce online and print directories: "Yahoo! Paginas Utiles." The project was initially successful and the parties sought to expand the deal to other countries and regions, including Central America, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo search users in the UK, Ireland and France will start to see ads from Microsoft's adCenter next week, as the two companies wrap up the transition that began in 2009 with the MSFT-Yahoo search alliance. As part of the transition, search advertisers that are still on Yahoo's platform in those countries will need to migrate to adCenter because Yahoo Search Marketing accounts will shift to read-only status. But, in a blog post today about the pending change, Microsoft suggests monitoring both accounts during the transition: As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and im [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Outside US | Top News | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search Ads

After China and the US, India is the third largest internet market in the world. But India has philosophically aligned itself more with China in pursuing a policy of censorship toward publication of content deemed "offensive" or "objectionable" by individuals, groups or the government. A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from the internet in India. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were sued under the law and had been arguing in Indian court that it was all but impossible for them to comply as a practical matter. The law makes online publishers potentially liable for [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Legal: Censorship | Microsoft: Outside US | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US

Bing is reportedly now out of betaphase in Deutschland. According to Microsoft, Bing has 10 million users or 20 percent of active internet users in Germany: Mittlerweile benutzen fast 10 Millionen Nutzer in Deutschland regelmäßig Bing, das sind 20 Prozent der aktiven Internetnutzer hierzulande. According to several third-party sources, Bing's market share is smaller than the 20 percent figure cited above. For example, the following is StatCounter's search engine data for Germany: Source: StatCounter NetMarketshare generally agrees, showing Bing's PC search share at just ove [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: Outside US | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Outside US | Microsoft: Partnerships | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Size | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search Ads

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be remembered mainly as a cost cutter who outsourced numerous functions to third parties. A partial list of those includes outsourcing Search to Microsoft, Shopping to PriceGrabber, Real Estate to Zillow and Maps to Nokia/Navteq. And now, the new Nokia-powered Yahoo Maps (NokiHoo) have just gone live in the US and Canada: maps.yahoo.com; espanol.maps.yahoo.com; ca.maps.yahoo.com and qc.maps.yahoo.com. NokiHoo maps are also available in other places around the world, such as Europe, but Yahoo doesn't have the data or has incomplete data outside of the ar [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

As the privacy screws tighten in the US and Europe, Yahoo is doing something surprising: extending the time it holds on to personal search records. In 2008 Yahoo decided to retain search records for only three months. Yahoo thus became the most "progressive" of the major search sites with its compressed data-retention policy. Now Yahoo is reversing itself. The Europeans had been demanding search/IP data retention of less than six months. And last January Microsoft agreed to comply with that standard. Google, however, refused to retain search records for less than 18 months. The company c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search

Earlier this year the Italian Communications Authority decided that YouTube was effectively a TV broadcaster and imposed the same rules and restrictions that apply to TV in Italy -- and potential penalties for their violation -- on Google. It said that Google is now legally responsible for any content appearing on YouTube. Now an Italian court has done something potentially much more sweeping with broad implications for search in Italy. Yahoo Guilty for Linking to Infringer Yahoo (in its capacity as a search engine) has been found liable for helping facilitate copyright infringement by index [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Outside US | Google: Web Search | Legal: Copyright | Microsoft: Bing | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Japan's Fair Trade Commission has given its approval to a partnership that allows Yahoo Japan to use Google search results. According to Reuters, Japan's FTC has promised to monitor the alliance for possible violations of the country's anti-monopoly laws. Yahoo Japan, which is controlled by Softbank with Yahoo Inc. as a minor owner, announced in July that it would use Google's search results instead of Yahoo's (and then Bing's when that partnership was implemented over the summer). Days later, Microsoft announced its intention to challenge the Google-Yahoo Japan deal. As a minority owner, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Outside US | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Outside US | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

The Wall Street Journal reports the largest online retailer in Japan, Rakuten has asked the Japan Fair Trade Commission to review the Yahoo-Google deal from a few months back. A Rakuten spokesperson said: The tie-up between the two firms would result in Google monopolizing information, which could hinder the development and growth of not only search engines but many Internet-related services in Japan. As we know, Microsoft said they will also challenge the deal where they said: We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Outside US | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Business Issues | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

The Yahoo UK and Ireland directory will be closing November 8, 2010. Yahoo officially posted the details on in their help section. Yahoo closed four European directories earlier this year including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Yahoo however told us that the US directory is safe and will not be going away. As many of you know, Yahoo started out as a web directory. Yahoo told us months ago: As part of Yahoo!’s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Yahoo: Directory | Yahoo: Outside US

If you thought instant search suggestions and results was fun, get a load of this: At Yahoo Taiwan and Yahoo Hong Kong, searchers can handwrite their search queries and Yahoo will try to match the handwriting to letters, and then show suggested searches. It's all described in this Yahoo blog post, complete with screenshots showing how users can begin their search by using a "handwriting panel" next to the search button. Yahoo says that's the Chinese language character for the first letter of Lady Gaga's name. To the left of what the user has drawn, Yahoo shows six possible character [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: User Interface

In a move that should surprise no one, Microsoft says it will try to block the recently announced Google-Yahoo Japan partnership. In our story from Tuesday, a Microsoft senior VP spoke out strongly against the partnership. Now, Silican Alley Insider received confirmation last night that the company will take steps to challenge it formally. "We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google's deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal," says a Microsoft rep. Also reported in o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Outside US | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Outside US | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

AllThingsD reported that the Softbank majority owned Yahoo Japan has decided to replace Yahoo Search (soon Yahoo-Bing) with Google. Yahoo owns a minority stake in Yahoo Japan and so can't control or block the decision. According to a statement released by Yahoo it will "support" the deal as it is contractually bound to do: Yahoo! Japan announced that it has chosen to implement Google as its backend algorithmic search engine and paid search infrastructure. Yahoo! Japan made this decision as an independent and separate publicly traded company, in which Yahoo! holds a 35% equity interest. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Outside US | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Outside US | Top News | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo has closed its web directories in four countries, and it seems no one noticed. It happened back in December, and Yahoo is now redirecting those directories to the country-specific web search pages. Sean Carlos dropped us a note about his blog post today on Antezeta.com, and we got this confirmation from Yahoo: As part of Yahoo!'s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others. After careful consideration, Yahoo! will no longer offer the Yahoo! Directory [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Directory | Yahoo: Outside US

Yahoo announced that it has acquired an Indonesian site called Koprol. Think of it as a kind of cross between Twitter and Foursquare, with more emphasis on the latter. (Yahoo had been rumored to be in talks to buy Foursquare. This move may reflect its inability to close that deal.) It touches local, mobile and social -- but it's mostly about mobile. Here's how Yahoo describes Koprol: Koprol allows people to connect and share photos, reviews and additional information about locations in real-time using just their mobile phone browser, making the service accessible to a large [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US

Yahoo announced this morning that its services will be pre-loaded on millions of Samsung phones worldwide. The new deal expands a relationship between the companies that began in 2007. Samsung is the second largest handset maker in the world, by unit sales, according to hardware tracking firm Gartner. Samsung is the third largest handset maker in the US but has a more limited presence in the all-important smartphone segment. According to the press release one or more of the following services will appear on Samsung handsets, including Bada (Samsung's OS) and Android phones: Yahoo! M [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yesterday Yahoo hosted a press event called SearchSpeak that sought to dispel the "misconception," in the words of new Search Products SVP Shashi Seth, that Yahoo was no longer investing in search. As Seth took the stage to begin his presentation the power in the room went out. Not a very auspicious start to the day, it seemed symbolic of Yahoo's new difficulties and challenges in search. Attempting to generate enthusiasm, he pressed on without slides: despite the popular misconception, Yahoo is not out of search, echoing statements made by CEO Carol Bartz and others on past company earning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: Shortcuts

Microsoft is the first of the major search engines to agree to the European Union's demand that data retention be cut to six months. The company will now completely delete IP addresses after six months. Here's what Microsoft said on the Bing community blog about the move: Today we sent a letter to the Article 29 Working Party notifying them of our intention to make a change to Bing’s data retention policy. Specifically, we are reducing the amount of time we store IP addresses from searchers to 6 months.  Currently we keep that information for 18 months before we delete it.  Generally, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics | Google: General | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: General | Microsoft: Outside US | Top News | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US

The iPhone was introduced on June 29, 2007 and that was effectively the beginning of the mobile internet era. With the iPhone also came the acceleration of mobile search for Google, the default engine for the iconic Apple device. This year mobile became a cornerstone of Google's strategy with a string of announcements, product tweaks and the $750 million AdMob acquisition announcement (now under FTC scrutiny). The aborted $500+ million Yelp acquisition was also partly about mobile as well. The big mobile story of 2009, however, is the rise of smartphone adoption and in particular the iPh [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Top News | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US

Yahoo engineers in France went on strike and protested yesterday over Carol Bartz wanting to close down the R&D center in Grenoble and ultimately putting 78 engineers out of work. Some of these protestors created a web site named Yahoo It Was You on a Google owned Blogspot, as a way to mock Yahoo's "Its You" campaign. These engineers announced the strike yesterday on the blog and posted a video to express their distaste for the decision to cut these jobs: You can learn more about the strike at Techmeme. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: Offices | Yahoo: Outside US