Microsoft Corp has renegotiated the search engine rotation contracts on its nascent MSN Start portal. Out go Yahoo, Excite and AOL NetFind, and in come AltaVista and Snap. Infoseek and Lycos have renewed their spot. The so-called premier partners, along with MSN Web search will get a guaranteed number of rotations as users choose to search through the Start portal. Microsoft confirmed that the four companies have paid it a total of around $60m for their guaranteed impressions. The new rotation will begin some time this fall. Inktomi Inc supplies the technology behind MSN, Snap and Yahoo, among its other OEM customers.
