Yahoo has narrowed the customer-satisfaction gap with Google according to just-released data from the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), reports Forbes: in the e-business ACSI, Yahoo has scored an 80 out of a possible 100, up from 78 last year, while Google's score is 82. The two-point difference is the closest Yahoo has come to Google in customer satisfaction. Red Herring writes that Google has scored 82 out of a possible 100 for the third year in a row.

Forbes's take is that the lines have blurred between the two companies because Google, once focused solely on search, has branched out to email, news aggregation, desktop search, mapping and shopping - while Yahoo, begun as a portal, is constantly adding services, has lately focused on search, and both companies are aggressively pursuing mobile and localized search.

"Satisfaction drives loyalty, which drives financial results," says Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which uses ACSI methodology to advise companies on how to improve satisfaction.

"MSN and AOL trail the leaders by a significant margin," Freed says. MSN had a 75 rating (same as last year); AOL's has increased to 71. "Both have seen flat or nearly flat revenue growth. Clearly people are voting with their dollars."

Ask Jeeves's ACSI score has risen 16 percent since 2002, to 72.