Yahoo Becoming Increasingly Aggressive in Promoting its Web Search Engine

According to Yahoo’s chief executive, the company teamed up with computer technology giant Oracle to promote its search engine through regular Java software updates to our computers.

Oracle’s Java technology is required by computers, servers, laptops, datacenters, mobile phones, browsers and many others and without it many websites and applications cannot run properly or run at all. For this purpose, the company constantly updates the application.

As of this month, Chrome and Internet Explorer users should expect to be asked whether they would want Yahoo search to become their default search engine on every Java update.

But since the box is checked by default, if you don’t pay attention you may expect to become a Yahoo search users even if you didn’t plan to.

The news about the move was disclosed Wednesday by Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer in an effort to maintain investors’ trust that the company is goal-oriented. But Yahoo has recently closed other deals with big companies to promote its services. In December, it partnered with Mozilla Corp to promote its search engine in Firefox. According to Ms. Mayer, the deal paid-ff, but she declined to provide some figures.

Rumor has it that the company is also trying to make Yahoo search the default search engine in Apple’s Safari browser, too. But the move cannot occur until the deal between Apple and Google expires.

And similar deals may follow since Yahoo! is trying to snatch a larger market share in the search engine business from Google. In U.S., Google still holds supremacy with a 64 percent for desktop search traffic. Microsoft comes second with 20 percent, while Yahoo search has less than 13 percent.

Additionally, Yahoo tries to promote its search engine in third-party apps too since it had released a developer kit earlier this year. Several days ago, Yahoo developers announced that they had successfully integrated the search service into TouchPal, the OEM keyboard app for some Android smartphones.

Furthermore, since Java runs on billions of devices worldwide, the Yahoo-Oracle partnership may prove to be a tremendous deal. Additionally, the agreement is slated to expire in three years’ time.

Still, Oracle may also have a huge stake in the deal, as well. The Redwood City, California-based company is involved in a long-running copyright infringement suit against Google over Java technology patents. The lawsuit is currently reviewed by the nation’s top court, but the outcome is fuzzy.

In May, Oracle retaliated against Google in a more subtle way – it prompted Chrome users to change web browser whenever they tried updating Java from Chrome. The company suggested other browsers such as Firefox and Safari as “long-term options.”

Image Source: The Newyorker