Yahoo and McAfee Team Together to Bring Search Engine Security

Yahoo Inc. and McAfee Inc. are teaming up to offer alerts about possibly dangerous Web sites in search engine results generated at Yahoo’s search engine. The new search feature will allow people who search the Internet to see a red exclamation point and a warning next to links that McAfee finds as having dangerous downloads or using visitors’ e-mail addresses to send out spam. Dangerous downloads include adware, which shows unwanted advertisements, and spyware, which tracks users’ keystrokes and other actions secretly.

Yahoo and McAfee hopes that the new feature will help people feel more secure when searching on Yahoo’s search engine and visiting sites. Yahoo has chosen to delete the most dangerous sites from their search engine and currently has the second most popular search engine after Google.

This partnership could allow McAfee a way to expose more Internet users to its security software and encourage them to upgrade to the premium versions. McAfee can also use Yahoo’s search information to find sites to examine for security holes and use the information to upgrade its products. The McAfee technology that is used on Yahoo’s site is a lesser version of McAfee’s full SiteAdvisor technology that is free from McAfee.

Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid

Microsoft Corp. has decided to withdraw its $42.3 billion bid on Saturday to buy Yahoo Inc. This came after an unsuccessful last try to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price.

Microsoft was willing to pay as much as $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, but Yahoo’s board wanted at least $53 billion, or $37 per share. Microsoft could make a new bid later this year if Yahoo doesn’t recover after having more than two years of financial problems. Analysts feel that if things don’t change for Yahoo Inc. soon, their stock would decrease into the mid-teens and that would make it difficult for the company to turn down any future offers. Yahoo Inc. is considering an advertising partnership with Google and a merger with the Internet operations of Time Warner Inc.

Yahoo Launches Site for Women

On Monday, Yahoo Inc. launched a site aimed towards women age 25to 54 called Shine. The site is made to give Yahoo Inc. more opportunities to sell advertising targeted towards women. Advertisers in consumer-packed goods, retail, and pharmaceuticals have requested that there be more ways to advertise to women and many women are looking for a site to combine various content and communication tools.

The site Shine offers content and services in parenting, love, healthy living, food, and career and money, entertainment, fashion, beauty, home life, and astrology. The site is in blog form and will have the newest items at the top of the page and commentary from an editor.

Visit: http://shine.yahoo.com

Yahoo Declines Microsoft’s Offer

Yahoo has rejected Microsoft Corp.’s $44.6 billion dollar offer thinking that they can get a better offer from the company or find another way to pay its shareholders. Yahoo has said that they could possibly negotiate if Microsoft comes up with a better offer. If they don’t, then Yahoo will have to try to rebound financially on its own.

Some analysts think that Microsoft will raise its offer to $35 to $40 per share to make the negotiation. Microsoft was willing to pay at least $40 per share for Yahoo a year ago but Yahoo wasn’t interested in the offer because it was confident in its own strategy and plans. A higher bid could possibly hurt Microsoft’s stock price, because recently it has been falling. Microsoft’s market value has decreased by over $40 billion, which is 14 percent, since the bid was announced. The Yahoo takeover could be more trouble than it’s worth for Microsoft. Analysts say that Yahoo will have no choice but to take the offer if Microsoft raises its bid.

If Microsoft doesn’t want to pay more money then they can take their original bid directly to Yahoo’s shareholders. Microsoft has been seriously considering this by meeting with some of Yahoo’s major shareholders to get support for the offer. Yahoo could also make Microsoft not want them by issuing out more company shares so that it would make the company too expensive for Microsoft to want to buy.

Even though Yahoo has been suffering for the past two years, it still has one of the largest Internet audiences and is a very valuable franchise. Microsoft wants to use those qualities to compete against Google Inc., which currently has the lead in online search and advertising. Yahoo has been considering an advertising partnership with Google as an option to earn profits and stay independent. Yahoo is also looking for other companies that might make a larger bid than Microsoft, but none has come forward yet.

Yahoo is hoping that their stock value will not go below $20 per share if Microsoft decides not to make any more bids. If that happens then there could be a large number of shareholder lawsuits.

Yahoo Lays Off 1,000 Workers

Yahoo Inc. is planning to lay off 1,000 of their 14,300 workers due to their 23 percent decrease in fourth-quarter profits and not being sure about their financial outlook for 2008. After the news was released, Yahoo shares hit their lowest levels in more than four years. Their market value has decreased more than 50 percent since the end of 2005.

Yahoo didn’t say which areas of its operations would be cut but some of the employees whose jobs are being eliminated might be offered new jobs in other parts of the company. Yahoo expects to pay between $20 million to $25 million for severance and other costs in the lay off. With the lay offs and cost cuttings, Yahoo could save more than$100 million dollars in costs and offset some of the financial loss that they expect from a re-negotiated partnership with AT&T Inc to provide high-speed Internet service. Yahoo and AT&T will share the revenue made through online advertising.

Yahoo hasn’t stopped making money but their profits fell by 12 percent in 2007 even though advertisers spent a lot of money on the Internet. The company is also working hard to try to attract more teenagers and young adults to the site.

Check Out Google's New gPhone

Google has created it's own wireless phone called the gPhone. Find out more: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2007/tc2007095_107344.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories