eBay gets together with Yahoo!

Reuters is reporting that eBay and Yahoo! have struck up a partnership to strengthen their positions against Microsoft and Google. The deal includes integration between several of the companies' services. The Yahoo! Publisher Network will now be the exclusive third-party provider of graphic ads on eBay, Yahoo! will use PayPal (owned by eBay) to allow users to pay for its various services, and the eBay toolbar will now be co-branded and include Yahoo! search features. The deal fuels recent speculation of an impending merger between the two companies.

Tags: auction, ebay, google, merger, microsoft, paypal, search, yahoo