Rivals of Yahoo Taiwan, which operates the most popular portal and online auction site on the island, had petitioned the Fair Trade Commission to stop the acquisition of Taiwanese blog site Wretch.cc on the grounds that it would give Yahoo Taiwan the power to control Internet advertising rates and would help Yahoo Taiwan consolidate its hold on auction activity. Taiwan"s FTC disagreed, saying the purchase by Yahoo Taiwan will not adversely affect competition in the local Internet market, that Yahoo Taiwan"s share of the local Internet market, estimated at between 57-59.54%, will rise by only 1.75% at most from the purchase of Wretch.cc., and that their businesses do not overlap.
Wretch.cc, which does not engage in any kind of auction activity, is the most popular site in Taiwan offering users the ability to post blogs, video blogs and photo albums, and had announced plans to expand to video publishing similar to YouTube this year. The ruling removes the last major hurdle to a deal between the two companies. Local reports value the deal at NT$700 million (US$21.2 million), but Yahoo Taiwan has not revealed the figure and declines to comment on the actual amount. Wretch.cc, with around 2.8 million members, will continue to operate independently.