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Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Gloves are off in the European pay-per-click race
Jonathan Bunis, Espotting Media's COO, comments on Overture's recent announcements to acquire AltaVista and the search division of FAST:
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"Overture's recent announcements bring it back to its original portal roots as a destination site. They are now in direct competition with their distribution partners. Espotting, already the European market leader, now also becomes the only truly independent pay-per-click player in Europe. This opens up opportunities with new affiliate partnerships. We have already received calls from companies who are fearful about continuing their working relationship with Overture.
"Market reaction to the news has been negative. Overture's shares tumbled yesterday (25/2) closing at $15.44 after the announcement of their agreement to acquire the Web search unit of Fast Search & Transfer. When the company announced the AltaVista takeover, Overture's market value plunged by 32 percent. Further to Overture's announcements, Goldman Sachs on 25/2 lowered Overture's EPS estimate for 2003 to $0.60 from $1.02.
"Espotting celebrates its 3rd birthday on 28th February. We now operate in 10 European countries, delivering targeted leads to over 14,000 advertisers by powering 700million searches a month through our partnerships with site such as Yahoo! Europe, Lycos and Ask Jeeves. Our relationships with FAST and AltaVista are ongoing across Europe. In January, Espotting was voted Best Paid Placement Service in the Search Engine Watch Awards."
Unquote.
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
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D'oh!
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