Yahoo!

Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students, David Filo and Jerry Yang as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the internet. The name is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle" and it has become much more than a database of information.

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global internet communications, commerce and media company providing many consumer services including internet content such as news, travel, sports, games, weather, shopping, auctions, photos, greetings, clubs, groups, finance and classifieds. It also provides communications services such as mail and Messenger.

The development of Yahoo! Europe, which incorporates separate search engines for Germany, France and the UK, follows the recent success of Yahoo! Japan and Canada. With teams based in each country, Yahoo! is better able to cater for the needs of Web users who want to search for information that emphasises their national heritage.

Having dumped Google as it's main results supplier, Yahoo! now offers both a search facility, based on their own (ex Inktomi) database and a comprehensive, hand-built directory. Yahoo acquired Inktomi Corp., along with Overture, Fast and AltaVista.

(Acknowledgement of information from Yahoo!)