Yahoo partnered with Microsoft on Bing to drive its search technology, which allows Yahoo to free up its resources from its search business and concentrate its efforts on expanding its content business.

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It was unclear whether any search technology from Yahoo is powering Etao's search services.

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The companies already have a substantial partnership, with Bing providing search technology to Yahoo and Yahoo supplying traffic to Bing.

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According to the terms of the 10-year deal, Yahoo will use Microsoft Bing technology for search, while receiving 88% of search revenues generated through its own sites during the first five years.

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It also comes as Yahoo in the U.S. has stopped developing its own search technology and adopted Microsoft's Bing.

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SearchIgnite, a search advertising technology firm, said Google lost advertising dollars to Yahoo!

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Google has a commanding lead in the global internet search engine market, although its market share has shrunk sharply during the past month after Yahoo stopped using Google technology to power its searches.

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But for Allen Weiner, a research director at analyst firm Gartner and someone who has followed Yahoo's progress since the early years, the future of search is not going to be purely about the technology powering it.

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If completed, a merger of Microsoft and Yahoo would be the world's largest of two computer technology companies and would create a formidable rival to Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc.

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