Google absent from AT&T's first Android phone

When AT&T Inc. releases its first phone with Google Inc.'s Android operating system this month, the device will be missing a key ingredient from Google: the default search engine.

Yahoo! Inc. will be set up to handle Internet searches on the phone, called the Backflip, though customers can still choose to use Google if they want to. The device, built by Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc., is due March 7.

"We have a long-standing relationship with AT&T and more than 80 carrier partnerships around the world for our award- winning mobile-search experience," David Katz, a vice president at Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, said in an e-mailed statement. "Mobile search continues to be a focus for investment and innovation."

The deal is a victory for Yahoo, a distant second to Google in the search market, which aims to make inroads with mobile- phone users. Google handles two-thirds of U.S. Internet queries, and its software is the default search engine on the iPhone. While the Mountain View, California-based company helped develop the Android operating system, that software is open-source, so phone makers can use it any way they like.

Google declined to comment on the Backflip. "This is not a Google-branded product and, therefore, product inquiries should be directed to AT&T and Motorola," the company said.

Google said last month that phone makers are shipping more than 60,000 Android handsets a day. Google sells its own Android phone, a model made by HTC Corp. called the Nexus One, on its Web site. The first Android model debuted in 2008.

Yahoo gained 7 cents to $15.80 at 9:52 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Shares of Dallas-based AT&T rose 7 cents to $24.95 on the New York Stock Exchange.