Search Engines: Google, Bing Shares Rose As Yahoo Fell

No surprise: shares of the biggest search engine providers rose again in June while the weaker ones fell, market researcher comScore Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR) said.

The continuing champion is Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the No. 1 search engine, with a share of 66.8 percent, up from 65.5 percent a year ago, followed by Bing, owned by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company, with a share of 15.6 percent, up from 14.4 percent.

In third place was Yahoo, whose share dwindled to 13 percent from 15.9 percent a year ago.

Overall, the anti-Google segment is only 28.6 percent, down from 30.3 percent last year. Under ex-CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo, in Sunnyvale, Calif., handed over to Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., much of the technical operation of Yahoo search.

Still, not all glitters in search land.

For one, Google, of Mountain View, Calif., is known to be under antitrust investigations by both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as the European Commission.

For alleged tampering with codes in the Safari browser devised by Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company, Google is reportedly ready to sign a settlement with the FTC and pay a record fine of $22.5 million for invading consumer privacy.

Microsoft, meanwhile, announced last month it would take a $6.2 billion charge to write off goodwill in its Internet Division, where Bing resides, mainly because it drastically overpaid for aQuantive, an online ad agency.

Yahoo, with three CEOs in the past year, has had its own internal drama, although its shares are up 5 percent over the past 52 weeks. On Wednesday, they fell 2 cents to $15.80 as those of Google fell $10.51 to $571.19 and Microsoft's eased 44 cents to $29.30.

Google shares have gained 8.3 percent over the past year. Microsoft's have increased 10 percent.