Internet search is a lucrative business — just ask Google. The company accounts for two-thirds of desktop searches in the US. But change is afoot this year. Microsoft and Yahoo, numbers two and three in US search, could revisit their search agreement with each other. Yahoo’s market share in this field has risen (now 13 per cent, ComScore says) after it became the default for Mozilla Firefox. Meanwhile Google’s exclusive search deal with Apple’s Safari browser is up for grabs; UBS estimates that the Safari deal could drive nearly $8bn in sales for Google this year. So 2015 could become the year of the search wars.
互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索是一項(xiàng)有利可圖的業(yè)務(wù)——只需問問谷歌(Google)就知道了。該公司占美國臺(tái)式電腦搜索的三分之二。但今年，這樣領(lǐng)域正在醞釀一場(chǎng)變革。在美國搜索領(lǐng)域排名第二的微軟(Microsoft)和排名第三的雅虎(Yahoo)，可能會(huì)重新修訂互相之間的搜索協(xié)議。在成為Mozilla火狐(Firefox)瀏覽器的默認(rèn)搜索引擎后，雅虎在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索領(lǐng)域的市場(chǎng)份額已上升（ComScore稱，如今其份額為13%）。與此同時(shí)，谷歌與蘋果(Apple)瀏覽器Safari的獨(dú)家搜索協(xié)議仍懸而未決；瑞銀(UBS)估計(jì)，與Safari的協(xié)議今年可能會(huì)為谷歌帶來近80億美元的銷售額。因此，2015年可能會(huì)成為搜索大戰(zhàn)之年。