Yahoo! to share technology

Yahoo! is planning to share its technology with third parties to enable them to develop search facilities based on the firm´s own systems.

According to the Associated Press, the move comes after Yahoo! has been overtaken by Google and was recently the subject of a potential takeover bid.

With its new service - known as Build Your Own Search - Yahoo! is allowing other web developers to construct search engines using tools that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to create.

Commenting on the move, Yahoo!´s chief strategist Prabhakar Raghavan said: "Our goal is to disrupt the search market and allow more entrants to come in."

Earlier this year, Microsoft made a bid said to be worth $47.5 billion (£24.05 billion) for Yahoo!.

The firm chose to reject the offer prompting Microsoft to announce it would no longer negotiate with the company´s current management, Reuters reports.