The Thursday approval of the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal by both the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Union (EU) will give Microsoft the control of the back-end of the Yahoo search service.

The revenue-sharing agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo, which underlines potential competition for Google, will witness search results being fed from Microsoft’s Bing search engine to Yahoo Search via an API. The Bing feeds will be presented by Yahoo to its users, in a way it deems suitable for viewing.

Despite the fact that Google is by far the most popular search engine, holding more than 65 percent of the search market, against Yahoo’s 17 percent and Microsoft’s 11 percent; still the Microsoft-Yahoo deal was expected to be scrutinized by the DOJ and the EU because it brings down the number of leading US search market competitors from three to two.

Noting that the approval has come after comprehensive investigations that grilled Microsoft, Yahoo and several “market participants,” the DOJ said: “Experience and expertise developed during our 2008 investigation of the proposed Google/Yahoo search advertising agreement (which incidentally was rejected) also informed our analysis.”

The DOJ further said that the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership will likely increase the search-market competition, as it would essentially create a more viable competitive scenario to combat Google’s dominance.