Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL have agreed to cooperate in the online advertising market and sell inventory on each other's sites. The agreement will allow ad networks operated by Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL to offer each other's premium nonreserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers. The companies said advertisers will be able to buy space across all three sites at once, benefiting from increased scale. At the same time, the three ad networks should see increased demand and provide better yields for publishers and advertisers. The companies expect to have their real-time bidding systems integrated by early 2012. The Microsoft Advertising Exchange and Yahoo's! Right Media Exchange will initially serve as the two marketplaces from which the partners can procure the inventory for resale to advertisers and agencies. AOL may opt to use its own exchange technology subsequent to the launch of the partnership. Under the terms of the nonexclusive agreements, each company will continue to make its own decisions, differentiate its offerings and set its own controls for how it operates any exchanges, ad networks or other aspects of its display businesses. They will actively compete with each other for both advertiser spend and publisher partners based on their own unique product differentiators. Effective in the US, the partnership is based on the premise of audience-based selling across a large number of sites and is not expected to affect direct sales made by each partner's respective internal teams. In addition to the US, Yahoo! and AOL will have an agreement that extends to Canada. Microsoft's Canada business is not participating directly in the agreement.
