Echoing similar efforts undertaken by Google, Yahoo is planning to work on a project to make books available for reading online. However, Yahoo's efforts will differ from Google's in that Yahoo will not be scanning copyrighted works, as Google did before publishers cried foul. Yahoo will, as an alternative, pay for the scanning of older, out of print titles and make them searchable through the Yahoo index.

"I would have loved to have seen Google take this approach from the very beginning," says Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineWatch website.

"Instead of just working on their own, they should have been collaborative and found a way to work together with everyone."