Yahoo! and eBay Are Now Partners

The conclusions of the report published by JP Morgan have been confirmed today by eBay and Yahoo!.

The two companies have announced a multi-year strategic partnership, which will allow the largest auction site and the largest portal to share their most successful technologies.

The agreement consists of four major components in the areas of search and graphical advertising, online payments, a co-branded toolbar, and the opportunity to explore "click-to-call" functionality.

"Our consumers will benefit from the combination of Yahoo! and eBay's leading technology and services, providing them with one of the best online experiences," said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc.

"Yahoo! holds a leadership position in all forms of online advertising. This partnership with eBay provides us with a great opportunity to further extend our sponsored search and graphical advertising reach to one of the largest and most active communities on the Web," Semel continued.

As expected, PayPal has become the exclusive third-party provider of its online wallet - allowing customers to pay for Yahoo! services from bank accounts, credit cards or balances associated with their PayPal accounts. As a result of this decision, this will provide Yahoo! consumers with additional online payment choices and the option to use PayPal across the entire Yahoo! network.

Another feature resulted from the partnership between the two giants is the inclusion of Yahoo!'s Web search functionality and the portal's site links, including the Yahoo! Home Page, Yahoo! Mail and My Yahoo!, into a co-branded version of the eBay toolbar.

The most important product launched by the two companies is the developing and deploying of the "click-to-call" advertising technologies, which will be accessible by users of both Yahoo! Messenger with Voice and Skype. "Click-to-call" is a product feature link included inside an advertisement that consumers can use to directly call that advertiser to pursue a transaction.