Facebook-Microsoft
Facebook has ended its partnership with Microsoft's Bing as its official search engine, a business relationship which has spanned seven years.
The two companies have had a long-standing partnership since 2007, when Microsoft invested US$240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. Recently, they decided to break up the partnership.
On Dec. 13 (local time), according to leading U.S. IT news sites such as Business Insider and VentureBeat, Facebook is no longer showing Bing Web search results in Facebook search.
This is a part of changes in its search functionality that Facebook has recently implemented.
Facebook Searches used to show mostly information about its own services including finding friends, but it also included web page links searched through Bing.
Microsoft and Facebook officials said to the media, “Even though two companies ended the Bing search partnership, we will continue to have a great partnership in lots of different areas.”
Due to the latest move, Microsoft’s Bing will see its share of the search market drop even more.
As of Sept. this year, ComScore estimated that Bing ranked second in the share of the U.S. search market with 19.4 percent. Google held a dominant position in market power with 67.3 percent, while Yahoo ranked 3rd with 10 percent.