The dramatic collapse in the value of internet companies was highlighted once more by Overture's $140m acquisition of Alta Vista, one of the pioneers of web search and once one of the world's most coveted online companies. Alta Vista's struggling parent CMGI, the Massachusetts-based technology group, has sold one of its crown jewels for just a fraction of the $2.3bn it paid to Compaq in 1999, when it took an 83 per cent stake in Alta Vista. Overture, which calls itself "the world's leader in Pay-For-Performance search", allows advertisers to bid for well-placed spots among web search results on sites...