Google-Yahoo Japan Alliance Wins Approval

Despite protests from rivals and calls from lawmakers for a closer look at the deal, Japan's antitrust regulators approved Thursday a web-search alliance between Google Inc. and Yahoo Japan Corp., even as Europe was launching an investigation of Google's dominance in internet search and advertising, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The alliance, announced in July, calls for Yahoo Japan, the country's most-visited Internet portal and search site, to use Google's search-engine and search-advertising platforms. That will boost the Google engine's share of searches in Japan to about 90 percent.

Japan's Fair Trade Commission said the deal wouldn't "immediately" violate antitrust rules, explaining it's limited to a sharing of technology.