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Google, South Korean Co Mull Wider Deal
The top executives of Google Inc. and Daum Communications Corp., South Korea's No. 2 Internet search engine, met Tuesday to discuss broadening their partnership, Daum said.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Daum CEO Seok Jong-hoon discussed cooperating in Internet search services and Daum's user-created video content service, said Lee Seung-jin, a Daum official. No official agreements were made, Lee said.
Daum late last year decided to end its advertising relationship with Yahoo Inc. in favor of using Google for paid search results.
Google, the world's No. 1 search engine company, has lagged local search engines such as NHN Corp.'s dominant Naver Web site. Users in South Korea say the local sites are better adapted to factors specific to the market, with more visually complex sites and reliance on human interaction instead of software to get search results.
Schmidt was in South Korea to participate in the Seoul Digital Forum, an annual gathering of industry and media figures.