Before the bell: AMR, GOOG, AAPL - BloggingStocks

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 8:30AM by Filed under: , , , , AMR Corp. (NYSE: ), the parent of American Airlines, anticipates to enter a non-cash charge of nearly $1.3 billion in the 2nd quarter, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also indicated it may , or 8% of its workforce.A federal justice in New House Of York ruled Tuesday that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: ) for the hunt mathematical function in its YouTube picture service as portion of an in progress $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by Viacom Inc. (NYSE: ), but it makes have got to turn over records of every picture watched by YouTube users, including their login name calling and information science addresses, be turned over to the amusement giant. If this doesn't look like a consumer privateness violation, I'm not certain what is.Meanwhile, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: ) is also encountering some law suits. This clip chief executive officer "Steve Jobs and other directors were accused in an investor lawsuit against the company of backdating stock-option awardings to maximise their personal profit." According to , Stockholder St Martin Vogel and co-plaintiff Kenneth Mahoney said in the new ailment that Apple executive directors hid the cost of the backdated options from shareholders, leading the company to register false fiscal statements.

Before the bell: AMR, GOOG, AAPL - BloggingStocks

Posted Jul 3rd 2008 8:30AM by Filed under: , , , , AMR Corp. (NYSE: ), the parent of American Airlines, anticipates to enter a non-cash charge of nearly $1.3 billion in the 2nd quarter, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also indicated it may , or 8% of its workforce.A federal justice in New House Of York ruled Tuesday that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: ) for the hunt mathematical function in its YouTube picture service as portion of an in progress $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by Viacom Inc. (NYSE: ), but it makes have got to turn over records of every picture watched by YouTube users, including their login name calling and information science addresses, be turned over to the amusement giant. If this doesn't look like a consumer privateness violation, I'm not certain what is.Meanwhile, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: ) is also encountering some law suits. This clip chief executive officer "Steve Jobs and other directors were accused in an investor lawsuit against the company of backdating stock-option awardings to maximise their personal profit." According to , Stockholder St Martin Vogel and co-plaintiff Kenneth Mahoney said in the new ailment that Apple executive directors hid the cost of the backdated options from shareholders, leading the company to register false fiscal statements.

Google says Orkut not late to open up

New Delhi: Google Inc, the web hunt and related to advertisement leader, said it is "not late" with the launch of OpenSocial applications on its societal networking portal Orkut, compared to the US-centric Facebook, as its stable applications are culturally and geographically suited for Orkut users.

Last month, Google opened up Orkut for 3rd political party developers by launching OpenSocial applications that lets users to add games, music etc. to their profile page.

"I don't believe we are late compared to Facebook. We wanted to be certain that the platform is stable for consumer launch. We launched the platform in November last twelvemonth for developers, so that they could begin edifice OpenSocial applications," Google's merchandise director Manu Rekhi told deoxyribonucleic acid Money.

OpenSocial supplies a common application scheduling interface (API) platform for societal applications across multiple websites, with standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can make applications to entree a societal network's friends and update feeds.

Rekhi said that many Orkut applications are built for India-specific users such as as Bollywood and cricket applications, which doesn't do sense on Facebook.

Rajat Agarwalla from Kolkata, who invented Scrabulous, the fifth-most popular application on Facebook, which touts of 3 million registered users, will establish the application on Orkut "next week".

"We will be releasing Scrabulous and ChessPro on Orkut adjacent hebdomad and I believe it to be equally successful on Orkut, if not more," Agarwalla said from his Kolkata office.

India and Federative Republic Of Brazil have the biggest user alkali for Orkut, whereas Facebook touts of heavy use from the United States and the UK. Many experts believe Facebook to be the innovator in the third-party application within social-networking space, and making money from it. Websites such as as Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, and XING etc have got already started implementing OpenSocial.

However, the Palo Alto, California-based Facebook is not portion of the OpenSocial platform, yet, but Google is unfastened to work with Facebook.

"We speak to everyone including Facebook, so we would be very happy and welcome if Facebook desires to be portion of this," Rekhi said.

The unfastened societal tendency took off some old age back, especially after Youtube allowed users to upload Youtube pictures on their websites. Facebook set more than construction to 3rd political party applications development.

However, Facebook critics see its construction as walled garden, where what haps on Facebook be givens to remain within it.

"So OpenSocial is going one measure additional expression that walled garden should not be there, so this is more than progressing," Rekhi said.

Orkut, which went unrecorded for 3rd political party application last month, said it is launching applications slowly.

"We have got got 28 application launched and have 100s of developers edifice on sandbox. Half of the applications were by North American Indian developers, and their quality is human race class," Rekhi said.

Orkut back ups a developer sandbox where they can compose applications using OpenSocial. Developer can anticipate their application to travel unrecorded on Orkut in 4-5 concern years after all the testing, blessings and security checks. On the other manus its challenger Facebook have over 20,000 applications on its platform with 140 new applications added per day.

Orkut had the first-mover advantage in Republic Of Republic Of India and almost got everyone within the 18-30 age section on board, however, Facebook have slowly started to eat away Orkut's marketplace share in India, and is attracting more than users on its site.

Facebooks touts of 70 million active users and its fastest growth demographic is those 25 old age old and older, while, Orkut have more than than 60% users from the age grouping of 18-25.

Orkut have development Centres in India, Brazil, the US, and a little squad in Zurich.

Under licence from

Yahoo Strikes Deal With Google as Microsoft Talks End (Update3)

agreed to allow Google
Inc. sell some of the ads it runs alongside Internet
search results, seeking to shore up gross sales after ending talks
with about a combination.

The trade may add $800 million a twelvemonth to sales, Sunnyvale,
California-based Yahoo said today in a statement. The companies
will detain implementing the programme for up to three and a half
months to give the U.S. Justice Department clip for review.

Yahoo sank 10 percentage today after the company said
talks with Microsoft failed. The partnership with Google may
boost the amount of money Yokel acquires when people chink on ads,
part of Head Executive Military Officer 's attempt to deflect
criticism from investor , who blamed Yang for
scuttling a $47.5 billion command from Microsoft.

''Abdicating hunt to Google sets in an untenable
strategic place in order to obtain short-term gains,'' Soleil
Securities Group Inc.'s said in an interview. The
Los Angeles-based analyst counsels investors to throw Yahoo
shares.

The agreement, which covers land sites in the U.S. and Canada,
may add as much as $450 million in operating hard cash flowing in the
first 12 months, Yokel said. The partnership isn't exclusive,
meaning that other companies in improver to Yokel and Google
will be able to sell advertisements to look on Yahoo's pages. Yahoo's
last twelvemonth was $6.97 billion.

Yahoo 7 cents to $23.45 in drawn-out trading after the
announcement. The shares declined $2.63 to $23.52 at 4 p.m. New
York clip in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Redmond, Washington-
based Microsoft advanced $1.12, or 4.1 percent, to $28.24.

Antitrust Fight

The understanding may put up an antimonopoly fighting over whether it
hurts competition. have said a trade between Yokel and
Mountain View, California-based Google will set more than than 90
percent of the hunt advertisement marketplace in Google's hands.

The Senate Antitrust Subcommittee will analyze the
arrangement, said President , a Wisconsin River Democrat.

''This coaction between two engineering giants and
direct rivals for Internet advertisement and hunt services
raises of import competition concerns,'' Kohl said in a
statement.

Google manages almost two-thirds of all hunts in the
U.S. The company got as much as 70 percentage more gross than
Yahoo for each hunt question at the end of last year, according
to Yahoo.

Microsoft's Command

Microsoft isn't interested in purchasing all of Yahoo, even at
the $33-a-share terms it wanted before the end of earlier
discussions May 3, Yokel said today in a separate statement. Microsoft proposed buying just Yahoo's Internet hunt business,
and Yokel managers declined.

Microsoft offered $35 a share for 16 percentage of Yokel as
part of an option proposed agreement, according to a person
familiar with the situation.

The Yahoo-Google understanding have a four-year initial term,
and two three-year renewals, at Yahoo's option. Advertisers will
pay Yokel directly for advertisement chinks through its Republic Of Panama advertising
system, and pay Google for Google advertisements that look on Yahoo's
pages. Google will share a per centum of that gross with
Yahoo, according to the statement.

''It volition beef up our company's place in the
convergence of hunt and display'' ads, Yang, 39, said on a
conference call. ''An unfastened marketplace is critical to promote the
evolution of online'' advertising.

The trade can be ended by either side if there's a alteration of
ownership at Yokel or Google. If Yokel is bought within two
years, it will have got to pay a expiration fee of $250 million. That fee may be reduced by earned by Google from the
agreement.

Relevant Results

The understanding will profit consumers and advertizers by
providing more than relevant advertisements for Yokel users, Google chief executive officer said today on a conference call.

Yahoo's further questions won't bring forth a big lift in
Google's sales, Helmut Schmidt said. Google encouragements gross more by
making hunt consequences more relevant than it makes from increasing
the volume of queries, he said.

Google began discussing the partnership with Yokel in
February. Helmut Schmidt said his negotiation with Yang intensified in the
past few weeks.

''Yahoo was obviously struggling with important
decisions,'' said Schmidt, 53.

Analysts and investors, including Gamco Investors Inc.'s
and Glenda Jackson Securities LLC analyst ,
have said outsourcing may cut into Yahoo's gross by
encouraging advertizers to travel all their concern to Google.

Icahn's Stance

Icahn had said he wouldn't oppose a hunt partnership with
Google if Microsoft refused to negociate a deal, as long as they
could end the understanding if renewed its advances. Microsoft said in a statement today that it's calm willing to
pursue an option dealing short of a full takeover.

, a spokeswoman for Icahn, didn't go back a
phone message.

Icahn bes after to throw out Yang for failing to come up to a trade with
Microsoft, accusing him of sabotaging negotiation by adopting a costly
employee-severance plan. Icahn have said a Microsoft coup d'etat is
the lone manner the two companies can vie with Google, the
leader in Internet hunt traffic.

Icahn owned 10 million Yokel shares and options to purchase 49
million as of May 15. Investors BP Capital LLC President and hedge-fund manager are backing his
slate of nine directors, which includes himself and former
Viacom head .

Yahoo said today that it have the assets and the strategic
plan to capitalise on growing in the Internet advertisement market,
predicting that yearly industry will almost dual to
$75 billion by 2010.

Yahoo had demanded at least $37 a share from as
of last month. That's 92 percentage more than the shutting terms on
Jan. 31, the twenty-four hours before Microsoft disclosed its initial
overtures. Yokel had reported eight living quarters of net income declines
prior to Microsoft's bid.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in Dallas at
;
in New House Of York at

Microsoft renews Yahoo courtship - few details

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(05-18) 19:06 PDT --
After abruptly abandoning its coup d'etat command for Yokel Inc. 2 hebdomads ago, Microsoft Corp. said Lord'S Day that it have made a new, downsized offering to collaborate with the Sunnyvale Web portal while leaving the door unfastened to a amalgamation down the road.

Details of the proposal were vague. But the offering raises the possibility of everything from purchasing a portion of Yokel to an advertisement partnership in which Microsoft would put its advertisements on Yahoo.

Another possible is a joint venture in search, an country where the two companies have got lagged far behind industry dominator Google Inc. Inch recent years, some analysts had speculated about Microsoft and Yokel whirling off their hunt concern into a single company that they would both control.

In any case, the move reignites the wooing between the two engineering giants, which were not able to hold on a terms in the first form of their negotiations.

Now Microsoft executive directors are asking for new talks, reversing their determination to "move on" in the aftermath of their failing $47.5 billion command and jump-start their online advertisement concern without Yahoo.

"Microsoft is considering and have raised with Yokel an option that would affect a dealing with Yokel but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo," Microsoft said in a statement.

Microsoft said that there is no self-assurance that both sides will attain an agreement.

Yahoo's response was oblique other than confirming that Microsoft was uninterested in acquiring all of the company, at least for now.

Yahoo added that its board, which have been considering a figure of trades to resuscitate its slumping business, "will measure each of our alternatives, including any Microsoft proposal" while adding that it is "open to pursuing any dealing which is in the best involvement of our stockholders."

The overture to restart dialogues come ups four years after billionaire investor militant Carl Icahn launched a command to throw out Yahoo's 10-member board, which he accused of acting irrationally by opposing a merger. By proposing a slate of replacements, to be voted on at Yahoo's yearly stockholder meeting July 3, he trusts to coerce Yokel back to the negotiating table.

Although Icahn is legendary for forcing loath boards to act, Yokel President Roy Bostock responded to the onslaught last hebdomad by saying that Yokel will only accept a amalgamation that appropriately values the company.

A beginning familiar with the substance said Icahn hadn't been in contact with Microsoft about Sunday's proposal. But that doesn't govern out the possibility of the company cooperating with him later on.

Microsoft's proposal doesn't prevent it from trying to get Yokel outright in the future. That point was hammered topographic point by the company, which said Lord'S Day that it was "not proposing to do a new command to get all of Yokel at this time," but that it "reserves the right to reconsider that option depending on future developments and treatments that may take place with Yokel or treatments with stockholders of Yokel or Microsoft or with other 3rd parties."

To beef up its lagging concern and go more than feasible as an independent company, Yokel is discussing a assortment of trades with other companies, including a program to outsource some of its hunt advertisement concern to Google. An understanding may be announced within a week, according to beginnings familiar with the matter.

The possible unnerves Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer. In a missive to Yokel chief executive officer Kraut Yang on May 3, he cited a Google partnership as a major ground for withdrawing his amalgamation command and added that a trade would ache Yahoo's hereafter growing and raise serious antimonopoly issues as a effect of the No. One and No. Two hunt engines joining forces.

Ballmer's new proposal to Yokel may be aimed at disrupting the Google deal, which have already prompted an antimonopoly enquiry by the Department of Justice.

Kevin Johnson, a Microsoft president, said in an e-mail to employees Lord'S Day in preliminary to an advertisement conference this hebdomad that his company is on the route to reviving its Internet business, which have lagged financially in the human face of Google's success. He spoke of attempts to be announced this hebdomad to pass some of its online places including hunt and the MSN portal while bolstering advertisement sales.

"Regardless of the result of any new discussions," he said about the Yokel proposal, "it is of import that we go on to travel forward to beef up our online services business. The fact is that we are not where we desire to be in this concern yet and we've been in this place longer than we'd all like."

E-mail Jules Verne Kopytoff at .

Auction-Rate Losses Cost Google, UPS $1.8 Billion (Update2)

The collapse of the auction-rate bond
market is costing stockholders of companies from Google Inc. to
Royal Depository Financial Institution of Canada more than $1.8 billion in investment
losses.

, proprietor of the most popular Internet hunt engine,
reported on May 12 that it lost $10.8 million on $259.6 million
it had invested in the bonds, marking down the debt by about 4
percent. , that country's biggest lender,
told stockholders on May 14 that the value of its investments
fell by $185 million.

More than 300 companies are struggling to value auction-
rate chemical bonds after traders battered by subprime-related losses
abandoned the $330 billion marketplace in February, said , main executive director military officer of New York-based Restricted
Stock Partners, which runs the biggest trading system for
the securities. About one-half the companies reported losses
totaling $1.8 billion as the marketplace for the securities, sold as
higher-yielding alternates to money markets, seized up.

''We've seen a existent acceleration in the figure of companies
announcing they throw them, and also a greater part of them
taking writedowns,'' Silbert said.

Companies owned $98 billion of the securities on Jan. 1,
according to A study by Treasury Strategies Inc., a Chicago-
based house that counsels financial officers on managing their cash. Treasurers bought the chemical bonds instead of money-market funds and
U.S. authorities bills, expecting to gain about 0.25 percentage
point in further yield, the Association for Financial
Professionals said in a last year.

Auction Failures

on the chemical bonds and preferable shares sold by municipal
governments, student-loan organisations and common fund
companies are determined by command every seven, 28 or 35 days. If demand is insufficient, the auction bridge neglects and some holders
are left with securities they wanted to sell. The issuer gets
stuck with a punishment charge per unit as high as 20 percent. In some cases,
the charge per unit can temporarily drop to zero.

The marketplace collapsed three calendar months ago when investors soured
on the securities because of concerns about the creditworthiness
of chemical bond insurance companies championship the debt. As demand waned, traders that
supported the marketplace for 20 old age suddenly stopped acting as
buyers of last resort. About 98 percentage of the student-loan and
closed-end fund auction bridges and 48 percentage of the municipal bids
failed last week, information compiled by Bloomberg show.

Unprecedented Situation

, the world's biggest package-
delivery company, said in a May 9 filing with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Committee that it wrote down the value
of $383 million invested in auction-rate chemical bonds by $33 million.

''As A consequence of the relentless failing auctions, and the
uncertainty of when these securities could be successfully
liquidated at par, we have got reclassified all our investings in
auction-rate securities to non-current in demand securities,''
the Atlanta-based company said.

''This is an unprecedented situation,'' said ,
a managing manager at the Association for Financial
Professionals, a 16,000-member trade grouping in Bethesda,
Maryland. ''There's not been A default but there's a complete
loss of liquidity.''

While Google's auction-rate securities ''are primarily
student loans which are substantially guaranteed by the U.S.
government,'' they ''do not have got a readily determinable value
and are not liquid,'' the Mountain View, California-based
company said in second .

'High Recognition Quality'

The securities are of ''very high recognition quality,'' , a Google spokesman, said in an e-mail, adding that
they ''represent a little per centum of our overall portfolio.''

Hill-Rom Holdings of Batesville, Hoosier State recorded an
''unrealized loss'' of $1.5 million on its balance sheet and
said it believes it will convert its $48.6 million in auction-
rate securities into hard cash within the adjacent 12 months. Companies
don't have got to book the loss in their income statement if the
writedown is considered temporary, according to Espen Robak,
president of Pluris Evaluation Advisors LLC in New York.

, the biggest U.S. infirmary chain, said in a May 12
filing with the second that the ''best estimation of just value'' for
the $661 million in auction-rate securities it throws was at par,
or 100 cents on the dollar, because the implicit in credit
quality of the chemical bonds is unchanged and anticipates they will be
refinanced.

Municipal borrowers, which do up about one-half the market,
are replacing at least $68 billion of auction-rate chemical bonds by July
7, according to information compiled by Bloomberg. Mutual monetary fund firms
redeemed $3.8 billion in so-called auction-rate preferred
securities and announced programs to pay off another $16 billion.

JPMorgan, Teva

stockholders may weave up with several
hundred million dollars of writedowns on auction bridge securities,
Chief Executive Military Officer said last hebdomad at a
conference in New House Of York sponsored by UBS AG.

held $4.6 billion of auction-rate debt
as of Jan. 31, most from pupil lenders, according to Beja
Rodeck, a spokeswoman for the Toronto-based company.

, the world's biggest
maker of generic drugs, said May 6 it was taking a $55 million
charge for its auction-rate securities, which totaled $334
million as of March 31. said Jan. 31
that it booked an unfulfilled pretax loss of $142 million on $811
million. The New York-based drugmaker's treasurer, ,
was subsequently replaced.

Near the End?

., a Tampa, Florida-based steelmaker,
posted a $22.7 million first-quarter complaint on $105 million of
investments.

''We would trust this marketplace gets to have got some more
liquidity and that this would be the end of it,'' ,
the company's head fiscal officer, said on a May 12
conference call.

The marketplace is so toxic that companies are going out of
their manner to state investors when they don't ain auction-rate
debt.

''The company makes not have got any auction-rate securities in
its investing portfolio,'' Seattle-based
said in a March 25 second filing.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in Hub Of The Universe at
;
in New House Of York at
.

Yahoo-Google ad pact raises antitrust eyebrows

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(06-12) 19:54 PDT --
Yahoo Inc. ended negotiation with Microsoft Corp. on Thursday and teamed with competing Google Inc. inch an advertisement partnership that falls in the two greatest Internet hunt engines - and raises antimonopoly concerns.

Under the agreement, Google will provide some of the advertisement on Yahoo's hunt engine and other properties, giving Yokel an estimated extract of up to $800 million in further yearly gross to support its slumping business. Yokel bes after to go on to sell its ain hunt advertisements but will expose them only when they earn more than gross than those sold by its new partner.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's head executive, called the Google understanding a good move for his company and shareholders. He alluded to Yahoo's five-month face-off with Microsoft, which proposed to purchase the Sunnyvale Web portal for $47.5 billion and then to simply get Yahoo's hunt concern - an thought that Yahoo's board rejected Thursday.

"Clearly, it is clip to travel on, and we believe that this understanding with Google makes so by strengthening our competitiveness," Yang said.

For Google, the understanding is a major triumph because adding a spouse the size of Yokel will add substantially to its already formidable fiscal might. At the same time, it covers a blow to Microsoft, which began its wooing of Yokel hoping to win more than grip online by gaining control of Yahoo's advertisement business. In the end, Microsoft succeeded only in pushing Yokel into the encompass of common challenger Google, of Mountain View.

It's unclear what impact the Yahoo-Google understanding will have got on an attempt by billionaire investor Carl Icahn to throw out Yahoo's board at the company's yearly stockholder meeting Aug. 1. He's been pressuring Yokel to O.K. a coup d'etat by Microsoft and is less enthusiastic about a Google deal.

Colin Gillis, an analyst with Canaccord Adams, said that Icahn's opportunities of installing his ain slate of managers is less without Microsoft in the mix. Icahn didn't go back a telephone phone call seeking comment.

"This board's authorization is to present a smooth, friendly dealing to Microsoft," Gillis said. "Without a buyer, it's unlikely that he's going to acquire the ballots needed to acquire his board in."

If Microsoft makes alteration its head and win with a coup d'etat of Yokel within 24 months, it would have got to pay Google $250 million to stop its new advertisement partnership. However, the amount could be reduced depending on Google's grosses from the agreement.

A trade between Google, the No. One hunt engine, and Yahoo, a distant No. 2, raises serious antimonopoly concerns. Attorneys observing from the outside anticipate the trade to acquire a tough regulating reappraisal by the Department of Justice.

"It's a marketplace that impacts an atrocious batch of both consumers and vendors," said Saint David Turetsky, co-chair of the antimonopoly grouping at the law house John Dewey LeBoeuf and a former helper lawyer full general for antimonopoly issues. "It's going to acquire a very, very careful look."

Consumer groups, ranging from those focused on the privateness effects to some with stopping point neckties to Microsoft, already are agitating against the deal. Respective congressional commissions are expected to look into the topic, including the Senate's antimonopoly subcommittee, whose chairman, Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said in a statement: "This coaction between two engineering giants and direct rivals for Internet advertisement and hunt services raises of import competition concerns."

Eric Schmidt, Google's head executive, said that the partnership was carefully structured to avoid regulating problems, emphasizing that it is nonexclusive. Yokel could beg other hunt companies to lend advertisements in improver to Google.

The new spouses said they will wait 3 1/2 calendar months to implement the deal, even though they aren't required to make so under antimonopoly law.

A treaty between Yokel and Google had been widely expected in the aftermath of a two-week ad diagnostic test the two companies tried in April that both described as successful. Google's advertisements bring forth up 70 percentage more gross per chink than Yahoo's, according to Yahoo.

Yahoo declined to state what per centum of its advertisements will be outsourced to Google. But Sue Decker, Yahoo's president, indicated that Google makes particularly well placing advertisements next to consequences of relatively indeterminate hunt queries.

Only Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian places are included in the agreement.

The news spooked Yokel investors, who sent shares falling $2.63, or 10 percent, to $23.52 on Thursday. Microsoft's shares jumped $1.12, or 4.1 percent, to $28.24, based on investor sentiment that the company was better off without Yahoo. What's the trade

Yahoo have agreed to outsource some of its hunt engine advertisements to Google:

-- Ads from both Yokel and Google will look adjacent to Yahoo's hunt results.

-- The trade with Google will hike Yahoo's yearly gross by at least $800 million.

-- Execution is expected by the end of September.

-- The Department of Justice will carry on an antimonopoly review.

Source: Yokel Inc.

E-mail Jules Verne Kopytoff at .

Yahoo annual meeting to weigh Icahn's bid

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Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday that it bes after to throw its yearly meeting on Aug. 1, starting the countdown to an epic poem conflict with billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Shareholders will make up one's mind who will command the Sunnyvale Web giant, which is facing intense examination in the aftermath of a failing coup d'etat command by competing Microsoft Corp.

Icahn is hoping to replace Yahoo's board, which he impeaches of bungling the negotiations, and restart amalgamation talks. Yahoo's managers are touting a three-year corporate makeover program in hopes of holding onto their seats.

The result of the fight, known as a placeholder contest, will largely find Yahoo's fate. Although still profitable, the Internet innovator have stumbled lately in the human face of stiff competition from industry leader Google Inc. of Mountain View.

In a taste sensation of the bare-knuckle tactics to come up in the placeholder campaign, Icahn told the Wall Street Diary in an interview published online Tuesday that he bes after to take Yokel chief executive officer Kraut Yang if he is successful in gaining control of the company. Icahn accused Yang and his chap board members of trying to undermine Microsoft's $47.5 billion coup d'etat bid, which he believes Yokel should have got accepted.

Icahn's remarks were spurred in portion by the release of tribunal written documents detailing a Yokel employee rupture program that would have got significantly increased the cost of an acquisition. The package, outlined in an investor suit, was set into topographic point shortly after Microsoft's amalgamation proposal and despite some concerns about the cost from Yokel employees and outside advisers.

Microsoft abruptly withdrew its amalgamation proposal May 3 after a three-month standoff when the two sides couldn't hold on a price.

Yahoo responded to Icahn's onslaught on Tuesday by saying in a statement: "Yahoo's board of directors, including Kraut Yang, have been crystal clear that it would see any proposal by Microsoft that was in the best involvements of its shareholders," while adding that "Mr. Icahn's averments disregard this clear factual record."

Initially, Yokel put its stockholder meeting for July 3, but then postponed it last month, saying regulators needed more than clip to reexamine the paperwork related to the placeholder contest. The hold bought Yokel some time, although it's unclear whether the other calendar month will assist the company addition stockholder support for the meeting, to be held at the Fairmont hotel in San Jose.

Several hedgerow funds, including one controlled by legendary billionaire investor T. Daniel Boone Pickens, have got recently bought billions of Yokel shares and program to vote in support of Icahn's slate of directors. Others on Icahn's slate include Dallas Mavericks proprietor Mark Cuban, former Viacom chief executive officer Frank Biondi and New Line Film co-CEO Henry Martin Robert Shaye.

In regulating filings, Yokel have urged its investors to back up the current nine-member board. In a regulating filing Tuesday, Yokel said two stockholders other than Icahn also had notified the company that they intended to put up themselves to the board. A 3rd stockholder said that he planned to put up a slate of nine directors, not including himself.

But Yahoo, which did not name the shareholders, said that they had failed to follow with the company's bylaws and therefore their campaigners might not be included in the approaching election. The deadline for nominations was May 15.

In related to news, Yokel have restarted negotiation with Microsoft about assorted advertisement partnerships, but not a full takeover.

E-mail Jules Verne Kopytoff at .

AP Technology NewsBrief at 12:10 a.m. EDT

(AP Online Via Get Media NewsEdge) News Corp.'s Fox launching LatAm online advertisement networkNEW York (AP) _ News Corp. is pooling some of its Web sites, including the newly acquired Wall Street Diary properties, to break sell fiscal advertisements targeting Latin America. It is the up-to-the-minute traditional mass media company to establish an advertisement web for helping Web land sites sell higher-priced ads targeted to specific audiences, such as as parents or traveling enthusiasts, keeping brand-name advertisers from fleeing to bigger Internet companies like Google Inc. and Yokel Inc.

China's Internet users are more into exploration - People's Daily Online

When making mention to the difference between United States Internet users and China's Internet users, Kai-Fu Lee, frailty president of Google Inc. and president of Google Greater China, said that China's Internet users are more than into exploration. Kai-Fu Downwind spoke at a conference with the subject of "the Future of Internet": a out of-bounds of the Boao Forum for the Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2008. Kai-fu Downwind said that compared to an norm age of 40 among United States Internet users, the norm age of China's Internet users is only 25 old age old. An Internet oriented around little users is characterized by a chase and avocation for amusement and community. Google's hunt consequences demo that China's Internet users are very curious. While users in the United States remain in the hunt consequences for 10 seconds; China's Internet users stay 30-60 seconds. "Users in the United States are more than than than into the search; and China's Internet users are more into exploration." He said that compared with the United States - in footing of information gateway picks and amusement options - China's Internet users trust more on the Internet. It is because Chinese immature people deficiency adequate amusement and chances for interpersonal human relationships that they are more than likely to take the cyberspace for amusement and do friends in the Internet community to ran into their psychological needs. In addition, many users have got not had many experiences; and so the Internet is an eye-opener to them. By People's Daily Online

Before the bell: AAPL, WFMI, GOOG, GM, PFE ... - BloggingStocks

Posted November 21st 2007 8:30AM by Filed under: , , , , , , , , , After French Republic come ups Federal Republic Of Germany with a similar ruling: Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: ) iPhone without contract restrictions. Deutsche Telekom AG's (NYSE: DT) mobile unit of measurement said it to the tribunal opinion that was issued after Vodafone challenged T-Mobile's exclusive lock on the handset.Following Hewlett Packard's (NYSE: ) better-than-expected results, what can be expected from Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: ). Dell, which is reporting adjacent week, is as it gains 56% of its gross from gross sales in the U.S. whereas horsepower is focused more than on international marketplaces and only gains a 3rd of its gross from the US. Considering Dell is also in the thick of a turnaround, it is clear the company may be facing more than challenges.According to TechCrunch, Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: ) is rumored to be trying "to make to the what it is trying to make to the mobile telephone with its Android operating system-create Associate in Nursing open-source hardware platform and pull developers to construct applications on top of it."Another chief executive officer who may be ache by the subprime messiness is General Motors Corp.'s (NYSE: ) Crick Wagoner. The Wall Street Diary that while Wall Street appreciated the auto maker's chief executive officer as he managed to cut costs and attain a trade with the UAW, rewarding the stock as it reached a three-year high of $43.20. Since then, however, gram shares have got fallen 39% arsenic car gross sales diminution and Wagoner's stake on subprime-mortgage loaning blew up.The Chantix, a Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: ) drug used to assist tobacco users discontinue cigarettes. There have got been studies the drug have also increases self-destructive ideas and violent behavior. Gross Sales of the drug followers Food and Drug Administration blessing last twelvemonth totaled $101 million.Whole Food Market Inc. (NASDAQ: ) after the stopping point yesterday. The natural nutrients grocer topped outlooks and raised dividends. Net Income actually declined 15%, but gross sales grew 35%, helped by the acquisition of Wild Oats. Same-store sales rose 8.2% inch the quarter.The Wall Street Diary that investors now believe the amalgamation between the two artificial satellite radiocommunication companies, Dog Star (NASDAQ: ) and XM (NASDAQ: ) now have a better opportunity of passing regulating muster as evidenced by the recent grasp in their stock prices.

UN teams up with Google and Cisco Systems to track global efforts to fight poverty

: The United Nations have teamed up with engineering giants Google Inc. and Lake Herring Systems, Inc. to establish a new Web land site that volition supply information and a bird's oculus position of planetary attempts to struggle poorness and ran into U.N. development goals.

The land site will track attempts by states around the Earth to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals for 2015, which human race leadership approved at a U.N. acme in 2000, by providing the up-to-the-minute statistics on health, education, malnutrition, women's equality and other measurements that lend to poverty.

On one part of the site, a Web surfboarder can also utilize Google Earth's map and artificial satellite imagination to wing anywhere on the planet and research from above the topographic points where work is being done.

The ends include cutting utmost poorness by half, ensuring cosmopolitan primary school education, reducing kid mortality by two-thirds, halting and starting to change by reversal the HIV/AIDS pandemic and cutting in one-half the proportionality of people without entree to safe imbibing water.

U.N. Secretary-General Prohibition Ki-moon called Thursday's launch "crucial" because for the first clip all information on the U.N. goals, known as the MDGs, will be available in one topographic point "for all who seek it, with a few simple chinks of the mouse." Today on IHT.com

Ban lamented that almost 1 billion people still dwell on less than US$1 a day; that billions of children decease every twelvemonth before their 5th birthday from causes associated with malnutrition; that infective diseases including acquired immune deficiency syndrome and malaria "are taking their worst toll on states that tin least afford it;" and that billions of people are living in slums.

"Clearly, we are facing a development exigency — and we necessitate exigency action," he said.

"For the first clip in history, the human race have at its disposal the agency to cut poorness in one-half in the span of a generation," the secretary-general said. "But ultimately, achieving the MDGs is a substance of political will. There is no Ag bullet, but the resources, cognition and tools for achieving the ends make exist."

The new MDG Monitor is one of those tools because it will harness the powerfulness of the Internet to supply information for policymakers and development experts who can larn from each other's successes and setbacks, and it will increase public entree and attending to achieving the U.N. goals, Prohibition said.

At the end of his speech, Prohibition set his manus on the mouse of a laptop computing machine computer together with Lake Herring Senior Frailty President Carlos Dominguez, Google's Michael Mother Jones who is main engineer for Google World and Maps, and U.N. Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis.

A user who chinks the Google World logotype can wing anywhere in the human race and see all the undertakings and measure the advancement toward meeting the MDGs, Mother Jones said.

"They can see successes and detect those, and observe failures or deficits ... and redouble their country's committedness to prosecute those efforts. So it's very exciting for us," he said.

Dominguez said Lake Herring believes that engineering and human inventiveness "can effectively steer expertness and resources to those in demand while highlighting the success of others in reaching these of import goals."

The budget for the undertaking is US$200,000 (€139,000), and it received US$150,000 (€104,000) from corporate donors, according to the U.N. Development Program, which is facilitating the new Web land site for the U.N.

UNDP's Dervis said information on the MDG Monitor come ups from a assortment of U.N. agencies, the World Depository Financial Institution and governments, but he noted that statistics are sometimes hard to obtain, and can differ.

"We trust to gradually defeat these failings and unfastened the land site to all organisations who garner statistics to offer their information," he said.

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