Google Becomes Default Search Engine for T-Mobile. Goodbye Yahoo!

It has been reported over at MocoNews that Yahoo! has been dropped by T-Mobile in favour of Google. The default search engine on the Motorola Backflip will be Google.

Yahoo will continue to provide some content services like mail, messenger, and news on certain phones, but the company confirmed to MocoNews that they are no longer providing search results to T-Mobile USA phones.

Google already had a deal in place to provide search results via their default status on all of T-Mobile’s line of Android phones. However, AT&T raised eyebrows this week when it opted to replace the built-in Google search functions in Android in favor of Yahoo! search. The very premise of Android is that it should increase Google’s position among the mobile search market. However, Android’s open-source nature means that companies are not obligated to make Google the default search engine on Android phones.

It’s unclear how profitable mobile search deals can be for search engines, but they are very enticing for carriers. How enticing? Well, Microsoft paid Verizon $500 million for the privilege of making Bing the default search engine on Verizon-branded devices. That’s big money for a small device.