Microsoft to Challenge Google, Yahoo with Paid Search Ad Service

Redmond, Wash. -- Software giant Microsoft has launched its own paid
search advertising service to compete with Mountain View-based Google
and Sunnyvale-based Yahoo, offering additional features over its rivals
for advertisers to target users based on their sex, age and location. The
company's adCenter service is currently running on MSN web sites in
France and Singapore, with testing in the U.S. scheduled to begin in
October. "We think we will offer advertisers better value because of the
superior information we have about our audience," Yusuf Mehdi, the
senior vice president of MSN Information Services & Merchant Platform,
told The New York Times. The company also said that it hopes to replace
the paid search ads currently provided by Yahoo on its U.S. MSN sites
with its own by the spring of 2006.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050926/sfm038.html?.v=26 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/business/media/26soft.html