Yahoo has decided not to join Microsoft in its call for US government regulators to investigate Google’s internet search practices.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz said Yahoo’s recent deal to combine parts of its search business with Microsoft Corp was the best way of challenging Google, which has attracted the attention of European Commission competition watchdogs for the way it compiles its search rankings.
“I think for the most part the markets work and I’d rather be competitive in the market,” Bartz told a special briefing at Yahoo’s Californian headquarters.
Microsoft, however, has been far less conciliatory, posting a message on its blog urging anyone unhappy with Google’s search practices to complain to the appropriate regulator in their country.
As Yahoo celebrated its 15th anniversary this week, Bartz said she had anticipated the company being consulted over Google’s plans to buy mobile advertising business AdMob for a reported US$750million. But Yahoo would not make representations itself, she added.
Yahoo would continue to streamline its business interests, and was focusing its search to diversify its business on acquisitions in the web-based media and entertainment sectors, Bartz said.
Despite Yahoo recently being overtaken by Facebook as the second-largest website in the United States, it would not spend money to simply regain that position, Bartz added:
“The fight to get another user is too expensive. It’s the fight to get the ad dollars around relevant users that I want to win,” she said.
She said Yahoo’s recent $100 million advertising campaign had been successful in many markets, but had not been so well received in the United States.
Bartz also said she was concerned at some European countries adopting policies holding search engine company executives responsible for content which they indexed. This follows the conviction in Italy of a number of Google executives it held responsible for a video posted by a third party on the company’s YouTube site.
“The countries are kind of weaving their own stories on some of this stuff,” Bartz said.