OPINION
May 6, 2008
Microsoft Corp. has withdrawn its $43-billion bid for Yahoo, at least for now, in the face of the Yahoo board's demand for billions of dollars more. The withdrawal cheered Yahoo executives and opponents of the takeover, most notably Google, whose dominance over some kinds of online advertising was threatened by the pairing. But if Yahoo responds by joining forces with Google, consumers and advertisers might end up worse off than had the Microsoft deal gone through.
BUSINESS
July 16, 2013 | By Jessica Guynn
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's not such a happy anniversary for Marissa Mayer, who just polished off her first year at the helm of Yahoo. Shares of Yahoo are down 2% after the company released a second-quarter earnings report that showed revenue fell 7% year over year to $1.14 billion, giving investors very little to yodel about. Analysts had expected disappointing numbers. The June quarter reflects the tough challenge facing Mayer as she attempts to turn around the aging Internet company that continues to trail competitors Facebook and Google: a steady decline in Yahoo's advertising business.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2012 | By Jim Puzzanghera
WASHINGTON - The top European antitrust official said Monday that an investigation has found Google Inc. may have abused its online dominance to squelch competition and offered the company a chance to settle the allegations to avoid formal charges. "I believe that these fast-moving markets would particularly benefit from a quick resolution of the competition issues identified," said Joaquín Almunia, the head of competition policy for the European Commission. "Restoring competition swiftly to the benefit of users at an early stage is always preferable to lengthy proceedings, although these sometimes become indispensable to competition enforcement.
BUSINESS
February 11, 2012 | By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
Google Inc., the company behind the Web's most popular search engine, is working on a home entertainment device, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. And reports say that device will stream music wirelessly in people's homes. Google plans to test 252 of the devices in its employees' homes in Mountain View, Calif., where it has its headquarters; in Los Angeles; in New York; and in Cambridge, Mass. The device uses wireless home networks and "requires testing outside the laboratory environment," the filing said.
BUSINESS
July 6, 2012 | By Jessica Guynn
Yahoo and Facebook have put down their arms and are settling a bitter legal fight over patents, preempting a nasty court battle between two Silicon Valley giants who used to be on much friendlier terms. The truce calls for a deeper advertising partnership between the companies and cross-licensing of patents, but no money will change hands, according to All Things D which was first to report the news. Charging a violation of patents, Yahoo, at the direction of since-ousted Chief Executive Scott Thompson, sued Facebook, one of its biggest rivals for advertising dollars, in March, two months before the social networking company's stock market debut.
BUSINESS
March 12, 2008 | Jim Puzzanghera and Jessica Guynn, Times Staff Writers
Google Inc. got its groove back Tuesday. The Internet search giant's stock jumped more than 6% as it closed its long-awaited $3.1-billion purchase of online advertising firm DoubleClick Inc. The deal, which cleared its last hurdle with unconditional approval from European regulators, could dramatically boost Google's presence in a lucrative online advertising segment it does not dominate. Although Google rules the market for targeted text ads that are linked to search results on its own and others' websites, New York-based DoubleClick is a leading provider of technology to deliver elaborate, targeted display ads to websites.