• Financial Times, Wednesday, September 24, 2008 12:04 PM

The Financial Times reports that Yahoo's board has cleared the way for a fresh round of merger negotiations with Time Warner's AOL. The decision came as Yahoo welcomed activist investor Carl Icahn, former Viacom boss Frank Biondi and former Nextel chief Frank Chapple to its board for the first time.

Sources told the FT that active negotiations for AOL are not underway at this stage. Talks between the ailing Web giants became serious in the spring as Yahoo grasped at alternatives to an unsolicited Microsoft takeover, but nothing came of the negotiations. Last week, Time Warner Chief Jeff Bewkes said he hoped to reach a decision about the future or AOL "fairly soon."

In an interview with CNBC, Icahn suggested that Yahoo's future still depended on reaching an agreement with Microsoft. He said Yahoo would "have to do something with Microsoft or Google is going to kill them."

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