Rakuten Opposes Yahoo Japan-Google Tie-up
As we reported here, Yahoo! Japan is transitioning its search engine platform from what they've originally developed to Google's technology. In opposition to that move, some news sources reported Japan's largest e-commerce giant Rakuten had requested Japan's fair trade commission to investigate a possible violation of the antitrust act over the Yahoo! Japan - Google tie-up.
Rakuten's opinion which has been submitted to the commission says, if Google's search platform will be deployed on Yahoo Japan, it may help Google to affect this country's Internet community extremely strongly in terms of controlling search result rank by the dominant company.
Meanwhile, Yahoo Japan emphasized that they would deploy Google's technology to improve the search engine platform, however, search results would be modified by Yahoo Japan themselves, and Yahoo Japan's search advertising will be also provided completely apart from Google's business.
See Also:
- Is Yahoo! Japan Switching To Google Search?
- It’s Official Now. Google Announces Their Search Platform Provided To Yahoo! Japan
Author Information Masaru IKEDA has co-founded several system integration companies and consulting firms in Tokyo. He has been contributing serial columns to nationwide newspapers and IT periodicals, also he's currently serving as tech consultant for several web companies. His biography is here. His private blog is here. 
