Microsoft to buy Yahoo; Google surrenders

[Matt]

Google search is vastly superior to anything else.

 

[Pessimism]

As long as they don't fuck with yahoo mail then I'll be fine.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Dammit!

You thought you had superior knowledge of movies (ok you do) and bands named after them (nope!) for a second there! Aha!

 

[General Zaroff]

I like both Yahoo and Google.

If I can't find something on Google, I run the search on Yahoo and sometimes what I want will come up.

 

[FenriR]

I use poodwaddle.
http://www.poodwaddle.com/
with which I can search whatever the hell I want!

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

All I know is that my Gmail gets infinity times the amount of spam that my yahoo email gets. It's gotten to the point where I can't even fucking use my gmail account any more because it's been eaten alive by spam. And I've NEVER used it to sign up for ANYTHING at all. I've never even posted it anywhere. So what the fuck? And this goes for two different Gmail accounts.

I know exactly what you mean. I've used my gmail account to sign up for this forum, musiciansfriend.com, and one or two other sites and I get between five and ten spam messages per day sometimes. For comparison, I get about two or three per month with hotmail, and I've probably had about five or ten within the past five years with my .edu account, which I use significantly more than my gmail account. If anything, I'd expect my .edu account to be plagued with junk and receive nothing in gmail, since I rarely ever use it.

 

[CAIRATH]

The reason why you probably get less spam on Hotmail is because Microsoft got so tired of Hotmail being spam haven that they decided to install really rigorous spam filters which outright reject e-mail (without even telling you). GMail's spam filter only flags e-mail as spam but still deposits all of it in your spam box.

The difference being that when MS detects 'known spam' it just flat out deletes e-mail that might possibly not be spam (and this happens more often than you think, which is why many companies don't even accept Hotmail addresses for mailing lists and such) whereas GMail leaves it up to you if you feel like digging through your spam box.

As for getting spam without ever having given out your e-mail, spammers will just guess addresses nowadays. With giant e-mail providers such as GMail and the use of a vaguely clever algorithm you can guess a huge amount of correct addresses to send spam to and there are even tricks to verify whether those addresses actually are in use (though they rely partially on people being dumb enough to actually open their spam messages).

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

For the first few months that I had gmail, I didn't even know it had a spam folder. When I finally realized it was there, I had like 360 messages that needed to be deleted.

 

[MasterOLightning]

I've found Yahoo Mail more than sufficient for my emailing needs. The spam filter is quite good. I used to not get very much spam at all for a very long time. Then it just started to get bad at a certain point. It will occasionally move stuff I want into spam, but even then it will just be a mass mailing from a distro, or something of the sort.

I've been amazed by how effective my .edu address is at blocking spam. I guess maybe because I'm a lot more cautious with that one, because I don't want clutter with stuff that actually matters.

I will probably start a minimal use Gmail account as a contact for when I'm applying to jobs. It looks more professional than masterolightning@yahoo.com does.

 

[The Ozzman]

Google Assails Microsoft Over Yahoo Deal
By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer

Google Rips Microsoft's Proposed Takeover of Yahoo, Saying It Would Stifle Internet Innovation

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. raised the specter of Microsoft Corp. using its proposed $42 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc. to gain illegal control over the Internet, underscoring the online search leader's queasiness about its two biggest rivals teaming up.

The critical remarks, posted online Sunday by Google's top lawyer, represented the Mountain View-based company's first public reaction to Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo since the offer was announced Friday.

"Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, wrote. "This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."

Google's opposition isn't a surprise, given that Microsoft views Yahoo as a crucial weapon in its battle to gain ground on Google in the Internet's booming search and advertising markets.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has been trying to depict a Yahoo takeover as a boon for both advertisers and consumers because the two companies together would be able to compete against Google more effectively.

But Google is painting a starkly different picture, asserting that Microsoft will be able to stifle innovation and leverage its dominating Windows operating system to set up personal computers so consumers are automatically steered to online services, such as e-mail and instant messaging, controlled by the world's largest software maker.

In a move that illustrates just how badly Google wants to torpedo the deal, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang Friday to offer his help in repelling Microsoft, according to a report Sunday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, which cited anonymous people familiar with the matter.

The assistance didn't include a counterbid, but may have included supporting other potential suitors, or a revenue guarantee in exchange for an ad partnership with Yahoo, the people said, according the newspaper.

AT&T Inc., Time Warner Inc. and News Corp. aren't planning to enter the bidding, the Journal said, citing the people familiar.

To help make its point, Google pointed to the way Microsoft previously used Windows to help extend the reach of its Web browser and other applications -- a strategy that triggered a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit alleging the software maker illegally used its operating system to stifle competition. The dispute ended with a 2002 settlement that required Microsoft to abandon some of its past practices.

"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?" Drummond wrote.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said preventing Microsoft from buying Yahoo would undermine competition by allowing Google to become even more dominant than it already is on the Internet

"Microsoft is committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the Internet," Smith said. "We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! will advance these goals."

If they get together, Microsoft and Yahoo would have about 16 percent of the worldwide Internet search market -- still far behind Google's 62 percent share, according to comScore Media Metrix. But Microsoft and Yahoo already are far bigger in than Google in e-mail and instant messaging, and conceivably would be in a better position to squash rival services if they combined.

Illustrating the enormous stakes involved in a deal that could reshape the technology and media industries, Google and Microsoft are already debating the pros and cons before Yahoo has responded to the offer.

Yahoo so far has little to say except that its board will carefully examine Microsoft's bid -- a process that "can take quite a bit of time," according to a message posted on the Sunnyvale-based company's Web site.

The review "will include evaluating all of the company's strategic alternatives, including maintaining Yahoo as an independent company," Yahoo said on its Web site.

Most analysts believe Yahoo will have little choice but to sell to Microsoft, with its stock price near a four-year low at the time of the bid and its profits falling since late 2006. When it was first announced, Microsoft's offer was 62 percent above Yahoo's market value -- a premium analysts doubt any other suitor will be able to top.

If Yahoo accepts, antitrust regulators in both the United States and Europe are expected to begin an exhaustive review that some experts think could last a year. Microsoft believes it could get the necessary approvals to take over Yahoo late this year.

If nothing else, Google probably will try to raise enough alarms about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to delay its approval for as long as possible. By doing so, Google would have more time to draw up plans to counteract the combination.

Google also is borrowing a page from Microsoft's book by urging antitrust regulators to take a hard look at the proposed marriage between its two rivals.

Just days after Google struck a $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad service DoubleClick Inc. last year, Microsoft began lobbying regulators to block the transaction. U.S. regulators blessed Google's DoubleClick acquisition late last year after an eight-month review, but the antitrust inquiry in Europe remains open.

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