Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo

Microsoft made a $44.6 billion bid on Friday for Yahoo, the popular search engine based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Yahoo’s rival, Google, has been working behind the scenes to stop the deal.


By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MIGUEL HELFT, The New York Times
Published: February 4, 2008

Standing between a marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo may be the technology behemoth that has continually outsmarted them: Google.
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Times Topic: Google Inc.

In an unusually aggressive effort to prevent Microsoft from moving forward with its $44.6 billion hostile bid for Yahoo, Google emerged over the weekend with plans to play the role of spoiler.

Publicly, Google came out against the deal, contending in a statement that the pairing, proposed by Microsoft on Friday in the form of a hostile offer, would pose threats to competition that need to be examined by policy makers around the world.

Privately, Google, seeing the potential deal as a direct attack, went much further. Its chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, placed a call to Yahoo’s chief, Jerry Yang, offering the company’s help in fending off Microsoft, possibly in the form of a partnership between the companies, people briefed on the call said.

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