Software giant Microsoft has said it is “evaluating its options” after Yahoo! Japan announced it is to move away from a deal with the firm and instead work with Google.
As part of the new agreement, Yahoo! Japan will be able to utilise Google’s search capabilities but the announcement of the deal came after Yahoo! Japan had already spoken about a potential team-up with Microsoft.
Should the deal go ahead, it would give Google almost total control over all of Japan’s search engine services and Microsoft may now try and block the agreement citing reasons to do with competitive fairness.
Last week, the software firm also said it is planning to put forward evidence to the Japanese Fair Trade Commission that shows the potential partnership between Yahoo! Japan and Google may be detrimental to market competition.
Japan has one of the largest search engine markets in the world and while Google dominates many other country’s internet searches, it does not as yet enjoy market share there.
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