Following last month's acquisition of the Arabic portal Maktoob, Yahoo is positioned to become the leading regional player, reports Amira Howeidy Forty-one year old Jerry , co-founder of US Internet giant Yahoo, might be justified in describing himself as a "dinosaur". He is, after all, one of the "Internet's founding fathers", in the words of an Associated Press report this week. But unlike the once dominant terrestrial vertebrate, is unlikely to face extinction any time soon, even if he is no longer Yahoo's CEO. Just as we thought Yahoo's golden age was a thing of the past now that powerful competitors -- not least Google with its gmail and search engine -- have attracted large numbers of Internet and POP 3 e-mail users, the Silicon Valley- based company is once again the focus of attention beyond its North American borders. Last month Yahoo completed its acquisition of the Arabic portal Maktoob, now Yahoo's gateway to the Arab region, a central plank in its policy to expand into emerging markets. The cost of Yahoo's Maktoob buyout remains a secret, but popular estimates place it at around $100 million, a fair price, perhaps, for the revenues that will be generated. During a brief visit to Egypt this week, made an appearance at the 2009 UN Internet Governance Forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, then flew to Cairo where, at the invitation of the American Chamber of Commerce, he gave a breakfast briefing on Yahoo's presence in this part of the world. explained that one obvious aim of the acquisition was to position Yahoo for a share of the Arab world's $4 to $6 billion-worth advertisement industry by pushing it online. Currently only one per cent of regional ads appear online. Before the acquisition Maktoob had 16 million users. According to Ahmed Nassif, the Arabic portal's general manager, that figure jumped to 18 million in the two months since the announcement of the takeover. Maktoob's interface is already beginning to look like Yahoo, but with Arabic content. By 2010, Maktoob-Yahoo will offer customised English content for the region alongside Arabic content and plans other communication services as well, says Nassif. And Egypt will play a key role in the transition because it is "such a core producer of content for the whole Arab world". Egypt has six million Yahoo users and three million Maktoob users. Across the Middle East Yahoo has 22 million users. The Yahoo-Maktoob synergy has been the region's hottest ICT news for months, placing Arabic web services firmly on the international map. (Arab Internet users increased from just 3.2 million in 2000 to 50 million in 2009). It has also given rise to questions over censorship and Internet data control, on the part of both users and governments. Yahoo's history on the issue has been controversial. In 2005 it revealed the IP address of one of its users to the Chinese authorities -- a journalist, who was subsequently arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. At the time Yahoo said its policy was to comply with local laws in areas where it was operating. Now that it has arrived in the Middle East will Yahoo continue to adhere to this policy? In a meeting with the press on Monday, Al-Ahram Weekly asked . His answer was cautious. "We follow whatever laws are applicable, but having said that we are fairly sophisticated and fairly experienced in operating in an environment where there might be very different content law and content sensitivity." Yahoo's policy, he argued, "is to protect user's identities to the right degree and on the other hand really make sure that we are compliant with local laws." Before Yahoo enters a market, he added, it assesses the impact of user rights issues as they relate to freedom of expression, content and filtering. It then sets its "operation so that we can try to achieve a balance". Yahoo "believes in openness and freedom of expression", but at the same time "we understand that each country has their different laws, we are operating in places ranging from Singapore, to presence in Europe and Asia". Not the straightest of answers, though clearly wants to convey that Yahoo has done its homework. Part of Yahoo's discussion with the governments in the countries it will be operating in, he said, is that it wants to make clear its goals, but at the same time operate in these markets. In short, "we will be really vigilant with every government we work with," he told the Weekly. Keith Nilsson, Yahoo senior vice president in emerging markets, attempted to be more specific. "I think when you get into specific cases, those are the judgement calls that people have to make." So if the Egyptian government requests the ID of a given user, will Yahoo reveal that information? "It's not an easy answer," says . "Whenever there is a request for user ID there's a very strict process that we adhere to because we believe that depending on where the data sits, depending on where the user is from, depending on where the ID is, it may or may not be something that we have the authority to give to the government." "If it's something that satisfies the jurisdiction and the legal issues, we will comply with the law. If they don't have the right to it, then they don't get it." The problem is that there is no Internet law in Egypt. There is Internet policing, monitoring and arrests, but they tend to be justified under the emergency law or through various articles in the penal code. Yahoo means business. It has come to the region, where online advertising is in its infancy, as an investor. "We are first movers, the first Arabic-focussed content communications Internet player that comes in the region." Yahoo expects online advertisement penetration to grow from one to 35-40 per cent. It is planning, says , to "educate" the market place by getting a sales team in place, working with the advertisers and with the large multinationals to "focus on this medium". Yahoo already has the incentive. According to , a lot of multinationals who already advertise on the Internet elsewhere are asking "'how do we get into this market where my growth is?' They're saying the same things we're saying: emerging markets, the Middle East, that is where we've got to be." By purchasing Maktoob Yahoo believes it will now be able to allow multinationals access to the region's consumers. "We already know how to advertise online," says . "We actually don't think it's that hard."
