Microsoft to buy search site Greenfield online for $486M
eWeek | at | by Mike
Microsoft has agreed to buy Greenfield Online, owner of Ciao.com, a European price comparison website, for about $486 million to boost its search and e-commerce business in Europe. Microsoft, whose $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo earlier this year failed after a protracted battle, said the acquisition should benefit its Live Search platform. Internet search is dominated by Google, which has 62 percent of the global search market and 79 percent in Europe, according to the most recent data published by Web usage tracker ComScore. Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9 percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo.