Yahoo Inc

Yahoo Inc. plans to lay off hundreds of employees in business areas not central to its new priorities as it faces rising competitive pressures, a person familiar with the matter said Monday. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which has seen its share of online advertising decline despite its sites being among the Internet's most visited, is still deciding where to cut.

Yahoo Inc. said it paid Chief Executive Terry Semel $39.8 million in compensation last year, mostly in stock options. Semel's salary was $250,001, down from $600,000 in 2005, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo said in a statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The drop resulted from Semel switching to a $1 salary from $600,000 in May 2006.

Yahoo Inc. reported a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results Tuesday, but gave investors some hope for a rebound. The company said it had started testing a much-anticipated Web search system designed to compete against its biggest rival, Google Inc. Yahoo's shares rose as much as 5% in after-hours trading Tuesday even though the company said the new system wouldn't help its bottom line until next spring. Yahoo announced its earnings after the market closed.

Three powerful technology companies have banded together to oppose Google Inc.'s proposed settlement with the Authors Guild and the Assn. of American Publishers over the Internet search giant's book scanning project. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have signed on to a coalition being assembled by the Internet Archive and Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer, said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit that is trying to build a free digital library of Internet content.

Despite an economy that has crippled consumer spending, shoppers still shelled out money for iPhones, iPod Touches and other premium products sold by Apple Inc., driving the company to post its best June quarter sales, the electronics giant said Tuesday. The recession, however, did not spare Yahoo Inc. The beleaguered Internet portal posted a 13% plunge in revenue over a year earlier as businesses continued to cut back spending on online advertising.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sramana Mitra captured a common sentiment in the title of a blog post last week: "Yahoo, Please Put Up a Fight." As its growth slows, Yahoo Inc. has taken steps to reorganize its management structure, narrow its focus and jettison some underperforming businesses. But it's still being outmatched in search advertising dollars by Google Inc. and in user growth by social networks such as Facebook Inc., which are rapidly gaining members and advertisers.

Terry Semel stepped down as Yahoo Inc.'s chairman, severing his ties with the slumping Internet icon 7 1/2 months after he resigned as chief executive under shareholder pressure. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company named another director, Roy Bostock, to replace him as nonexecutive chairman. Semel, 64, who joined Yahoo in 2001, was hailed for building its ad business after the Internet bubble burst. But he faced calls for his dismissal as the stock tumbled last year.

Whether a Microsoft Corp.-Yahoo Inc. combination would put a real obstacle in Google Inc.'s path or just a pothole would depend on whether the merged company got the kind of dynamic leadership that neither side has exhibited in recent years, analysts said Friday. The two companies have complementary strengths that ought to make them a tougher competitor as a team, such people said.

Acknowledging it can't beat Internet juggernaut Google Inc. on its own, Microsoft Corp. on Friday lashed its online fortunes to another Web also-ran with an unsolicited $44.6-billion bid for Yahoo Inc. Microsoft and Yahoo, two of the world's most powerful technology companies, have each spent billions of dollars over the last half-decade trying to catch up to Google in the lucrative search-engine advertising business but still find themselves as far behind as ever.

Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang chose the name of his company in part because it referred to someone who is rude, unsophisticated and uncouth -- not the starchy executive jockeying for splashy deals. The 39-year-old billionaire has relished the title of Chief Yahoo that he picked up after he and friend David Filo started the Internet search company in 1995 as graduate students at Stanford University.