BRUSSELS- The European Commission has set a provisional deadline of Feb. 19 to decide whether to clear a bid by Microsoft to acquire control of Yahoo Inc's search engine business.

The parties notified the European Union's competition watchdog last week, a list of planned mergers under review on the Commission's website showed on Tuesday.

The notification concerns the acquisition of control by Microsoft of Yahoo Inc's online web-wide algorithmic search and paid search advertising business, the Commission said.

U.S. software giant Microsoft and Yahoo announced the Internet search deal in July last year in a move that could challenge market leader Google.

(Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Dale Hudson)

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