IAR: Overture Inks Search Pact with MSN Japan

Paid search leader Overture Services (Quote, Company Info) announced on Thursday a deal with MSN to provide commercial search results for its Japan properties, as Overture continues its push abroad.

The exclusive deal follows a six-month test agreement between MSN calls for Overture to provide paid search results for both MSN Search Pane, a search feature on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, and MSN's Japan site. The Search Pane agreement applies only when searches are done via MSN — Explorer users can set it to search via other search providers, although MSN Search is the default — and expires in December 2003. The MSN Japan agreement expires in December 2004. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"This is a very important deal for us," said Johannes Larcher, Overture International's general manager. "It really solidifies our market-leading position in Japan."