This article is more than 1 year old

Yahoo! and! Microsoft! extend! tricky! search! deal! talks! by! 30! days!

Can Redmond and the Purple Palace continue to hang tough?

Microsoft and Yahoo! have extended discussions about whether to remain wedded to a decade-long and at times stormy search deal that was first struck in 2009.

Under the duo's 10-year pact, it was agreed that Redmond's Bing would power searches across the Purple Palace's web estate.

But Yahoo!'s search advertisers have previously expressed concerns about the deal, which the company had hoped would bring in $500m annually.

Wiggle room was offered as part of the deal, however. It was agreed that the contract could be pored over half-way through, allowing for a 30-day renegotiation window as of 23 February this year.

But Yahoo! revealed in a Form 8-K regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday that it needed more time to work out if the alliance should continue.

A new deadline has now be set for 24 April, after the period of negotiation talks was doubled from 30 to 60 days.

Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! said in its filing:

[T]he Company, in addition to other termination rights, had the right to terminate the Search Agreement, during the 30-day period following February 23, 2015, if the trailing 12-month average of the Company’s revenue per search in the United States (the “U.S. RPS”) on Yahoo Properties is less than a specified percentage of Google’s trailing 12-month estimated average U.S. RPS, excluding, in each case, mobile devices.

It's unclear if Yahoo! has hit its revenue targets as a result of the deal struck with Microsoft. ®

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