In a surprising development, Yahoo Japan just announced that it would be switching to Google as its search technology and paid search provider. Now, before we all think and ask how could this be possible especially since Yahoo and Microsoft have been starting to work on their search ad integration deal recently. The answer lies in the fact that Yahoo Japan is not entirely own by Yahoo. Hence it has no full control of the Japanese site.
Yahoo owns only 35% share of Yahoo Japan. While Japanese Internet service provider Softbank owns around 40% of share of Yahoo Japan. Yahoo Japan is operated independently as a separate publicly traded company with Mr. Masahiro Inoue sitting as its President and CEO while Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang sitting on the board.
Of course, the deal is not going to pass through without opposition by various groups. Microsoft for one definitely was not please with this alliance between Google and Yahoo Japan. Japanese regulators might also look at this deal in the negative way as the alliance would corner a big chunk of the Japanese search ad market. Google currently has more than 38% of the search volume in Japan while Yahoo Japan has more than 53%. The terms of the deal as well as its date of implementation are still unknown.
So, what do you think? Will the deal push through or will Google and Yahoo Japan face some more strong opposition from other market stakeholders?
