Antitrust Regulator, No Problem with Yahoo Japan and Google Deal

Takahide Matsuyama, secretary-general of Japan’s Fair Trade Commission said during news conference on Wednesday that Yahoo Japan talked to the authorities before disclosing the deal and that the company explained that Yahoo Japan and Google will do their own business separately even if Yahoo Japan will use the search technology of Google for its search service.

Mr. Matsuyama explained that the deal would have no problems with the antitrust regulations as long as they steak into that deal.

The Deal

Yahoo Japan is not fully owned by Yahoo Inc. (US company). Only 34 percent of the Yahoo Japan stakes is owned by the US company.

Before the Yahoo Japan and Google current deal, Yahoo Japan was using the search technology of Yahoo Inc. However, when Yahoo Inc announced last year that it would be using the Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Yahoo Japan was left using the currently unsupported Yahoo search engine. So, Yahoo Japan should choose whether to use Google or Bing.

However, Microsoft is a little bit slow in localizing its Bing search engine in Japan which led the Yahoo Japan to choose Google search engine which has more or less 30 percent market share in Japan.