Yahoo's board of directors are set to meet today, but won't decide on anything until later next week when they've had a chance to iron out details of what an AOL-Google alternative would look like compared to a Microsoft buyout. That said, Yahoo sources tell The Journal that a Microsoft takeover is still the most likely outcome. Some Yahoo shareholders are already voicing their opposition to an AOL. They claim Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the board are the only ones adamant about avoiding a Microsoft takeover. If the software giant does include News Corp. in a deal, which …

Advertising executives are weighing in on the potentially landscape altering war over Yahoo. As Tim Hanlon, EVP of Publicis Group unit Denuo, says: "Nothing short of a new world order in this space is up for grabs." Consolidation usually reduces competition, and advertisers could find themselves having to work with fewer companies that have a greater hold on certain online sectors. For example, if Google were to power Yahoo's search advertising, it would have a near 90% share of that market. On the other hand, a Microsoft-News Corp.-Yahoo combination or a Yahoo-AOL merger could serve to spread the power in …

Half-a-dozen Yahoo sources tell BoomTown's Kara Swisher that they're none too happy about the prospect of an AOL-Yahoo deal. Not only do they severely dislike the idea, they don't even like the use of it as a ploy to get Microsoft to pay more for their company: "It is a very dangerous game of chicken," said one. "And Yahoo has never been really good at that anyway." Yahoo execs generally consider the Time Warner company "slow-moving, weak in technology and saddled with a largely dispirited staff." Said one exec: "We have enough problems without getting theirs, which are much …

In a memo to employees about the Yahoo saga, AOL CEO Randy Falco underlines the problem facing social networks: "But despite drawing large, engaged audiences, other social networks have not been able to make the experiences relevant to users and marketers alike." Falco hits the nail on the head: social nets want marketers to foot the bill for content that's specifically tailored to an experience where the user is completely disengaged from marketing messages. Falco thinks that by combining Platform A and Bebo, AOL could fix the problem.. But lumping another company into AOL's portal and then using an ad …

The European Parliament on Friday voted to outlaw the kind of anti-piracy legislation introduced recently in the UK and France. The European Parliament bill, introduced, ironically, by a Frenchman, claims that "Criminalizing consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution", and that individual countries should "avoid adopting measures... such as the interruption of Internet access." In France and the UK, recent proposals have placed the responsibility on users' shoulders. Last year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy introduced a policy that warns consumers three times before disconnecting them for illegal downloading. The UK is mulling a similar …