YAHOO! TO STRENGTHEN COMPETITIVE POSITION IN ONLINE ADVERTISING THROUGH NON-EXCLUSIVE AGREEMENT WITH GOOGLE
Sunnyvale, CA, June 12, 2008
Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Google Inc. that will enhance its ability to compete in the converging search and display marketplace, advancing the company’s open strategy. The agreement enables Yahoo! to run ads supplied by Google alongside Yahoo!’s search results and on some of its web properties in the United States and Canada. The agreement is non-exclusive, giving Yahoo! the ability to display paid search results from Google, other third parties, and Yahoo!’s own Panama marketplace.
Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will select the search term queries for which – and the pages on which – Yahoo! may offer Google paid search results. Yahoo! will define its users’ experience and will determine the number and placement of the results provided by Google and the mix of paid results provided by Panama, Google or other providers. The agreement applies to paid search and content match and does not apply to algorithmic search. The agreement also applies to current partners in Yahoo’s publisher network.
Yahoo! CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang said, “We believe that the convergence of search and display is the next major development in the evolution of the rapidly changing online advertising industry. Our strategies are specifically designed to capitalize on this convergence -- and this agreement helps us move them forward in a significant way. It also represents an important next step in our open strategy, building on the progress we have already made in advancing a more open marketplace.”
“This agreement provides a source of funds to both deliver financial value to stockholders from search monetization and to invest in our broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting point objectives with users,” said Yahoo! President Sue Decker. “It enhances competition by promoting our ability to compete in the marketplace where we are especially well positioned: in the convergence of search and display.”
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
New documents shed light on Yahoo saga
June 04, 2008 By Associated Press
Yahoo Inc. chief executive Jerry Yang pushed for an employee severance program that made it more expensive for Microsoft Corp. to engineer a takeover, according to previously sealed documents in a shareholder lawsuit against Yahoo.
The details about the severance program and other information about Yahoo’s efforts to thwart Microsoft’s takeover bid became available Monday after a Delaware judge released redacted portions of a shareholder complaint filed last month after Microsoft withdrew an oral offer to buy Yahoo for US$47.5 billion, or $33 per share.
The severance plan would have increased Microsoft’s costs by $462 million to $2.1 billion, based on the software maker’s initial Jan. 31 offer of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, according to Yahoo estimates released Monday.
The severance program, adopted Feb. 12, guaranteed a mix of cash and stock payments to all 13,800 Yahoo employees if they were either fired or quit after being reassigned to a new job within two years after a Microsoft takeover.
The program’s costs—and how they might have discouraged Microsoft from raising its bid above $47.5 billion—could become fodder in a shareholder mutiny that activist investor Carl Icahn is leading against Yahoo’s board.
Spurred by shareholders upset at Yahoo’s board’s handling of the bid, Icahn has filed a plan to replace the remaining nine directors unless the takeover talks are revived before Yahoo’s annual meeting in late July.
Microsoft hasn’t ruled out making another takeover attempt, although its recent talks with Yahoo have been limited to a business deal involving Yahoo’s online search operations.
Besides delving into the costs of Yahoo’s employee severance program, the newly released documents include a reference to Yahoo records indicating Microsoft had offered to buy the Internet pioneer for about $40 per share in January 2007, only to be rebuffed.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was still willing to negotiate privately when he phoned Yang on Jan. 31 this year to let him know the software maker was prepared to make another buyout offer, according to notes of the conversation included in the documents released Monday.
Ballmer said he would listen to a counterproposal and keep the negotiations private if Yang indicated Yahoo was receptive to a sale.
Ballmer also told Yang that Microsoft intended to offer $1.5 billion in incentives to retain Yahoo employees after a takeover, the documents said.
After Yang indicated Yahoo would take more than two days to respond to Microsoft’s Jan. 31 offer, Ballmer revealed the takeover attempt in a Feb. 1 press release.
As part of the effort to fend off Microsoft, Yang quickly began working on the employee severance plan to protect workers if Microsoft wound up owning Yahoo.
After some internal discussion to limit the most generous benefits to about 700 Yahoo executives, Yang decided the packages should provide accelerated stock vesting for all workers.
June 04, 2008 By Associated Press
Yahoo Inc. chief executive Jerry Yang pushed for an employee severance program that made it more expensive for Microsoft Corp. to engineer a takeover, according to previously sealed documents in a shareholder lawsuit against Yahoo.
The details about the severance program and other information about Yahoo’s efforts to thwart Microsoft’s takeover bid became available Monday after a Delaware judge released redacted portions of a shareholder complaint filed last month after Microsoft withdrew an oral offer to buy Yahoo for US$47.5 billion, or $33 per share.
The severance plan would have increased Microsoft’s costs by $462 million to $2.1 billion, based on the software maker’s initial Jan. 31 offer of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, according to Yahoo estimates released Monday.
The severance program, adopted Feb. 12, guaranteed a mix of cash and stock payments to all 13,800 Yahoo employees if they were either fired or quit after being reassigned to a new job within two years after a Microsoft takeover.
The program’s costs—and how they might have discouraged Microsoft from raising its bid above $47.5 billion—could become fodder in a shareholder mutiny that activist investor Carl Icahn is leading against Yahoo’s board.
Spurred by shareholders upset at Yahoo’s board’s handling of the bid, Icahn has filed a plan to replace the remaining nine directors unless the takeover talks are revived before Yahoo’s annual meeting in late July.
Microsoft hasn’t ruled out making another takeover attempt, although its recent talks with Yahoo have been limited to a business deal involving Yahoo’s online search operations.
Besides delving into the costs of Yahoo’s employee severance program, the newly released documents include a reference to Yahoo records indicating Microsoft had offered to buy the Internet pioneer for about $40 per share in January 2007, only to be rebuffed.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was still willing to negotiate privately when he phoned Yang on Jan. 31 this year to let him know the software maker was prepared to make another buyout offer, according to notes of the conversation included in the documents released Monday.
Ballmer said he would listen to a counterproposal and keep the negotiations private if Yang indicated Yahoo was receptive to a sale.
Ballmer also told Yang that Microsoft intended to offer $1.5 billion in incentives to retain Yahoo employees after a takeover, the documents said.
After Yang indicated Yahoo would take more than two days to respond to Microsoft’s Jan. 31 offer, Ballmer revealed the takeover attempt in a Feb. 1 press release.
As part of the effort to fend off Microsoft, Yang quickly began working on the employee severance plan to protect workers if Microsoft wound up owning Yahoo.
After some internal discussion to limit the most generous benefits to about 700 Yahoo executives, Yang decided the packages should provide accelerated stock vesting for all workers.
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