Yahoo! to charge online merchants.

Yahoo! Inc., the No. 1 Internet search service and directory, said this quarter it will start charging transaction fees from merchants whose stores are hosted on its network of Web sites to boost its commerce revenue. Yahoo! has traditionally charged retailers fixed monthly fees for hostingtheir online stores on its Web sites. That appeals to merchants who don_t have the expertise to set up their own Web stores or the money to spend on attracting millions of users to their Web sites. Yahoo! has never asked for a portion of the transactions completed through Web stores hosted on its network. Some Internet companies such as America Online Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are already garnering electronic-commerce revenue from merchant fees for transactions made on their Web sites. Yahoo! stands to benefit from matching merchants with its audience of more than 105 million unique users worldwide. "Overall our revenue for enabling transactions will still be less than 10% of our total revenue," said Yahoo! President Jeff Mallett. Yahoo! said earlier this month that it would start charging transaction fees soon, though it did not specify when.