eBay Might Join Hands with Yahoo!

The landscape of the most visited Internet sites might change completely if one of the possible partnerships and alliances between giants like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, eBay and MySpace is carried out.

The rumors that the social networking site MySpace, which now has approximately 80 million registered users, is in talks with Google and Microsoft for a possible partnership were followed by new ones regarding an alliance between eBay and Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft.

A report of the analysis company JP Morgan cited by stuff.co.nz says that a partnership between eBay and Yahoo! would be the most strategically feasible.

"A combined company would have the leading position in auctions, communications, payments, graphical advertising, audience reach, and geographic breadth," the report wrote.

EBay's spokesperson, Hani Durzy, said the company works very closely with all the major web search providers, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, but he declined to comment on any potential Yahoo tie-up.

For MySpace, a site acquired by News Corp last year for $580 million, an alliance means that one of the online search giants will insert a search field and provide ads.

As Financial Times mentions, such an agreement typically involves the two sides splitting advertising revenues, with the lion's share going to the website that delivered the audience.