Overture Chief Sees Clear Sailing Ahead

Now that Overture Services (OVER Quote) is being acquired by one of its biggest business partners, some investors worry that Overture's relationships with its other online partners will sour.

But Overture Chief Executive Ted Meisel calls this a misguided notion.

Following Overture's agreement last month to be acquired by Yahoo! (YHOO Quote), there's a sense, Meisel says, "that because Overture is now part of a portal ... somehow that diminishes the value, to affiliates, of what Overture does."

Not true, he says. Yes, in the past, the pay-per-click search-engine operator has gotten Web site affiliates to host Overture's search results in part by arguing that it wasn't competing with them for advertising dollars by operating its own destination search engine. ...