Karra Maxim asked:


Google co-founder Sergey Brin has said that the search engine giant is still interested in working with fellow search engine business, Yahoo. Agreeing to a tie-up with Google would be incredibly beneficial to Yahoo, which is currently trying to fend off unwanted attention from Microsoft.

Microsoft and Yahoo admitted they were talking about a tie-up in search advertising this weekend, although discussions over a full merger collapsed earlier in the month. While these takeover talks between Microsoft and Yahoo were still ongoing, Google successfully trialled some of its technology on Yahoo’s US site and yesterday, at their Zeitgeist conference in Britain, Google executives said that they were willing to develop an even deeper relationship with Yahoo boss Jerry Yang.
When asked how the Yahoo trials had gone, Brin replied enthusiastically. He said: “Things went very well with that test so we would be very excited to work with them again.” The company are thought to have discussed a full tie-up with Yahoo last month and it is thought that a deal could be announced in a matter of weeks.

However, Google stand to benefit from a deal with Yahoo too. After all, if a takeover deal between Microsoft and Yahoo were reached, it would seriously challenge Google’s dominance in the search engine market. Indeed, when questioned over Google’s main competitor, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt admitted: “Eventually, I think it is obvious that it will be Microsoft, based on their actions.”

Microsoft has been trying to aggressively take over Yahoo for some time. When the IT giant first announced its intentions to do this, Google warned that the deal raised “troubling questions” about the future of the internet. Indeed, David Drummond, who is Google’s chief legal officer, said that a takeover would make a business that had an “overwhelming share” of online communications services, including web-based email and instant messaging.

Despite this, many questions have been raised about Google’s own dominance of the search engine market, as well as the amount of personal information that they have collected about our online habits. However, both Brin and Page stressed that they closely guard this information and are keen to protect their users privacy in order to keep them using the service. Page said: “If we are not trusted, we have no business. We have such a lot to lose, we are forced to act in everyone’s interest.”

Indeed, for many people, the merging of Yahoo and Microsoft would ease their concerns that Google is now too dominant. Recent figures from Nielsen Online indicate that Google has seen its share of internet search queries in Britain rise from around 77% last March to almost 80% this March. Yahoo was the second most popular search engine in Britain with a share that fell from last year’s 7.9% to 5.4%. Microsoft’s MSN and Windows Live search sites were in third place with a share of 4.3% in March this year. This figure is up slightly up on the 3.4% share that was recorded last year.