Microsoft and Yahoo announced this morning that both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission have approved an agreement between the two firms to have Microsoft's Bing search engine power Yahoo's sites. Microsoft and Yahoo engineers will now start working together to adapt Bing for Yahoo. The partnership means Yahoo will selling premium search advertising services for both companies.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement:

Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone. I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers, as well as to advertisers and publishers.

And Yahoo CEO, bartz said:

This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo can focus even more on our own innovative search experience. Yahoo gets to do what we do best: combine our science and technology with compelling content to build personally relevant online experiences for our users and customers.