| StoreTags: microsoft, yahoo, merger
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so, it seems microsoft is gobbling up yahoo with a $45 billion unsolicited bid. which means they will own flickr as well.
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By DAN CATERINICCHIA, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 41 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - U.S. and European antitrust regulators aren't likely to prevent Microsoft from buying Yahoo, analysts said Friday, though scrutiny of the deal could drag on for months.
A major factor weighing in Microsoft Corp.'s favor, analysts said, is Google Inc.'s dominance in the online search and advertising businesses — the two areas regulators are likely to focus on when weighing market power issues raised by the nearly $45 billion unsolicited bid.
The Justice Department said it is "interested" in reviewing competition issues raised by Microsoft's surprise offer. The Federal Trade Commission and European Union officials declined to comment. If the deal goes through, analysts expect Congress and European regulators to review the combined company's increased competitive edge.
"I don't see this just sailing through, regulators will look at it," Ted Henneberry of the London law firm Heller Ehrman said. But even after a review that could take up to six months, he said a Microsoft-Yahoo combination isn't likely to be stopped because the new entity's share of the online ad space would still be dwarfed by Google, which already controls nearly 60 percent of the U.S. search market.
"The fact that Google dominates this business will be a big factor in (Microsoft's) favor in trying to get this approved by the regulators," said Keith Hylton, a professor of antitrust law at Boston University.
Alternatively, a combined Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft — which are the second and third largest U.S. search engines — could ease concerns about Google's growing power in the ad space. By combining, Microsoft and Yahoo would have a 33 percent share of the U.S. search market, according to the latest data from comScore Media Metrix.
The Federal Trade Commission in December approved Google's $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick Inc., but European Union regulators are still examining the deal and Google has said it won't go forward without their blessing. (Microsoft lobbied hard against the deal, arguing that it would give Google a dominant position in the online ad market.)
The FTC's OK of the Google-DoubleClick deal surely influenced Microsoft's decision to bid for Yahoo, said Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications who has been critical of the agency and fears that industry consolidation will be bad for consumers.
"Despite the appearance of unlimited choice in the new media environment, people's online activities will be tracked and shaped by a very small number of companies who care far more about surveillance and targeted advertising than the public interest," Turow said.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, agreed and said "the problem of profiling Internet users will become more severe if mergers go forward without appropriate privacy safeguards."
Many Wall Street analysts expect regulators to approve the transaction, which Yahoo said it will "carefully and promptly" study.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, said the same issues that prompted lawmakers to review the Google-DoubleClick deal exist in a potential Microsoft-Yahoo combination, including examining how it affects consumers, advertisers and businesses "who increasingly use the Internet for their news, commerce and entertainment."
If Yahoo accepts Microsoft's offer, the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to "explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal," Kohl said.
A federal judge this week extended by 18 months court oversight of Microsoft's market power, which began in 2002 after a landmark antitrust settlement. Hylton said Justice has been relatively lenient with Microsoft, compared to state attorneys general who pushed for the extension of court oversight of the software giant. Justice officials said the 2002 antitrust settlement had largely served its purpose and should expire.
Shares of Yahoo added $8.84, or 46.1 percent, to $28.02 in afternoon trading, while Microsoft fell $2.15, or 6.6 percent, to $30.45.
___
AP Writers Christopher S. Rugaber, Michael Liedtke, Jessica Mintz and Aoife White contributed to this report | |
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02/01/08
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celibacyclub
i think microsoft and google should both build giant robots and they should fight.
02/01/08
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ignatius
i guess it'sa good time to own stock in yahoo though.
02/01/08
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license
wonder what's gonna happen to MS in the long run.
02/01/08
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mixedtape
Yea but this is just an unsolicited bid at the moment right? It seems to me that Yahoo! doesn't want to be bought what with them acquiring all of these social apps. Flickr, Upcoming, their social network 360, etc. That's a huge number to balk at though for sure.
02/01/08
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ricemutt
ms is going to buy the government
02/01/08
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ignatius
they're going to build a deathstar and blow up alderon and then deliver $100 laptops to developing nations
02/01/08
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crazyshadow
so microsoft is trying to own everything
02/01/08
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tantan
hope it doesn't happen, mostly just cos of flickr
02/01/08
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tantan
not that it would result in the death of flickr or anything, just like to avoid ms if I can
02/01/08
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bb01
I don't get how these anti-trust alarms alarmbells are in place for these kinds of products, when most of the worlds processed foods are made by only a few companies?
02/01/08
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tantan
Hm, good question. Maybe anti-trust doesn't apply equally to all industries for some reason.
02/01/08
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appollo51
time to drop my yahoo account...
Lycos?
02/01/08
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jogn
personally why does anyone post to flickr? Doesn't their t&c indicate that they own your photos if you put them up there?
02/01/08
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ignatius
jogn said: "personally why does anyone post to flickr? Doesn't their t&c indicate that they own your photos if you put them up there?"
shortly after yahoo bought flickr.. yahoo dropped their photo service and force you to migrate all your photos to flickr (or they just sent you an email that let you know they would do it for you if you 'click here').. so many people got into flickr by default
02/04/08
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thehydrax
Is this the only way M$ can recover from the Vista failure?
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