Microsoft Plays Both Sides Of The Ad Game

Ten weeks after Microsoft first launched its $45 billion bid for Yahoo!, the software giant is still slowly tightening its net around the struggling Internet portal. But as Microsoft bargains for the fate of Yahoo!, it’s still being haunted by the ghost of its last major acquisition: the $6 billion buyout of online advertising firm aQuantive nearly a year ago.

When Microsoft acquired aQuantive last May, it also bought an element of controversy: a small part of aQuantive’s business helps clients get high placement in the search results and paid search advertising offered by Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Some in the search industry say that could mean a conflict of interest–if the search marketing arm of aQuantive’s subsidiary Avenue A/Razorfish gained special access to Microsoft’s search algorithm and advertising platform, MSN’s search results and ad placement could be biased towards aQuantive’s clients. And that problem, they say, would only grow if Microsoft manages to acquire Yahoo!’s 20 or so percent of the search market

Read the full story at Forbes

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