Ars Technica says the MicroHoo saga, which has dragged on for about as long as the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, isn't anywhere close to being over. Microsoft on Sunday announced that it was open to maybe buying a piece of Yahoo, its search business. But Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor who's threatened to launch a proxy fight to get Microsoft back in bed with Yahoo, won't have been too impressed to hear that. "Microsoft is trying to get the milk without buying the cow, and if you look at Icahn's history, he has never been used that way," …

News Corp. on Monday launched a new online ad network focusing on financial news. Called Worthnet.Fox, the new global network contains 30 financial news and advice sites, including News Corp.'s Dow Jones properties The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Marketwatch. Its target audience is executives who frequently travel all over the world on business. According to Reuters, Worthnet.Fox comes is a response to Dow Jones' growing international presence, and will help the media conglomerate mine new areas like Latin America. "The economy has grown around the world and has helped create a new global affluent individual," said Hernán López, chief …

Microsoft on Sunday issued a statement indicating an openness to return to the bargaining table with Yahoo, even though the software giant walked away from negotiations to acquire the company less than two weeks ago. This time, Microsoft says it favors a smaller-scale deal rather than an outright acquisition, though it doesn't discount the possibility of either outcome. Sources tell Kara Swisher that Yahoo's search ad business is Microsoft's primary concern, as the combination would make for a credible No. 2 competitor to Google in the search business. Microsoft could either purchase Yahoo Search or enter a deal …

Display advertising may suffer as the economy slows. Mixed results from the likes of Yahoo and Time Warner indicate that online publishers may be getting less money for the ad space they sell. More and more advertisers are opting for automated targeting and delivery through cheaper advertising networks instead of buying directly from expensive publishers like Yahoo. And the cost continues to go down, dropping 23% from March to April, according to PubMatic, a technology firm that runs an online pricing index. The drop was even steeper among large Web publishers, falling 52%, according to the firm. If those …

As Google, MySpace and Facebook battle to become the primary gatekeeper of user data portability, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld points out that friend data is already being leaked out of their Web sites unbeknownst to them. "Startups are finding ways around their official APIs to get the data consumers want into their own systems," he said. Steve Repetti, CTO of Zude, a personalized Web page service, said he was tired of waiting for "true data portability" to arrive, so Zude came out with SocialMix, a feature lets users import friends lists, photos, profile information, status updates, comments and other data from …

Yahoo looks set to lose out on yet another major advertising deal, as it emerged today that AOL, in finalizing its $850 million acquisition of Bebo, will most likely not renew Yahoo's pact with the UK social networking giant after once their display advertising deal is up in September 2009. Actually, it's an absolute certainty: AOL's Platform A will take over Bebo's advertising operations in Australia, Ireland and the UK once the Yahoo deal ends in September 2009, because why else would the Time Warner company have bought the social network in the first place? Bebo's chief executive Joanna …