Media: yahoo to leave search partnership with microsoft

The windows group, however, is opposed to an early end to the deal, which runs until 2020, the wall street journal and the financial news agency bloomberg reported on wednesday.

After the deal negotiated about three years ago, yahoo falls back on the infrastructure of the microsoft search engine bing, its own efforts to develop a search engine were abandoned.

However, the new yahoo boss marissa mayer is dissatisfied with the results of the microsoft partnership, it said with reference to informed persons. Among other things, the advertising revenues were too low.

Mayer has already obtained a verbal commitment to cooperate with her former employer google, bloomberg wrote. At google, she herself had been responsible for the industry-leading search engine business for a time. Google earns the lowen share of its profits from the advertising business.

Microsoft does not want to let yahoo go so easily, however, according to the reports. According to the contract, a partner can only withdraw from the deal in 2015, it said. There are clauses that allow for early termination – for example, if microsoft sells or closes down bing.

Yahoo could also terminate the partnership if the advertising revenue per search query was less than 40 percent of the google average, bloomberg reported. However, it is unlikely that they will sink that low.

At the same time, according to reports, the target values for commercials have always been missed so far. Yahoo takes now per search inquiry even less than before with the own system, it hewed.

Yahoo announced on tuesday that microsoft’s minimum lot guarantee would be extended by one year to spring 2014. Microsoft steps in with cash if the agreed advertising revenue is not met in the US market.

Officially, yahoo speaks of a good cooperation with microsoft. "We’re happy with the partnership," mayer said just this week at a conference hosted by technology magazine "wired".