Facebook and Yahoo have agreed to settle a patent dispute, averting a potentially lengthy battle over the technology.
In dropping the lawsuits, the companies agreed to license their patents to each other. They are also agreeing to an advertising alliance that expands their existing partnership. Friday’s settlement involves no exchange of money.
Now
that the antagonism is dissolving into an accord that could benefit
both companies, the hundreds of millions of Web surfers who use both
Yahoo and Facebook should find even more common ground on the two
services.
The
advertising alliance could help Yahoo recover some of the revenue that
it has been losing as marketers shift more of their spending to a larger
and more engaged audience on Facebook’s online social network.
Facebook, in turn, gains the opportunity to show the ads tailored to fit
the individual interests of its 900 million users in other heavily
trafficked areas besides its own website.
