Overture Services plans to acquire search technology company AltaVista for $140 million in cash and stock, the latest sign of consolidation in the resurgent search business.
Pasadena, Calif.-based Overture, which auctions placement in search results to advertisers, said Tuesday that it plans to bolster its commercial service with AltaVista's technology. Palo Alto, Calif.-based AltaVista, which is majority owned by CMGI, develops technology that crawls the Web and returns relevant search results in response to users' queries.
Overture plans to license the technology to its customers, which include Yahoo, MSN and AOL Europe. Overture also will use AltaVista.com to test new search services and marketing products for its advertisers.
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