Yahoo won an approval of a judge's settlement mandating changes to a severance plan put in place last year that makes it difficult for the company to be acquired by potential suitors. According to Bloomberg, Delaware Chancery Court Judge William B. Chandler III approved the accord, which resolves investor lawsuits over Yahoo executives' decision last year to rebuff Microsoft's buyout offers. Basically, shareholders sued the company after ex-CEO Jerry Yang rejected a bid from Microsoft to acquire the company for as much as $47.5 billion last year. One lawyer said the settlement amounted to "an extraordinary victory" for investors seeking …

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has been absolutely everywhere recently, appeared on the Charlie Rose show on Friday, where he discussed Google's origins, its business model, and his vision of Android-powered devices transforming into televisions. During the wide-ranging interview, Rose also asked Schmidt about the possibility of a Twitter takeover. The answer: "unlikely." "I shouldn't talk about specific acquisitions," Schmidt said. "We're unlikely to buy anything in the short term partly because I think prices are still high. And it's unfortunate I think we're in the middle of a cycle. Google is generating a lot of cash. And so we …

There's a definite opportunity brewing for non-media companies in online video as audiences soar and production and distribution costs fall, writes USA Today's David Leiberman. "It's a gigantic business," said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of online video services firm Brightcove. "Every single month it's just grown and grown, to the point where a majority of our customers now are not media companies. They are people using the Web to market, communicate, educate and inform." Allaire's customers include organizations like AFL-CIO, Anti-Defamation League, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Archive of American Law Enforcement and The Asia Foundation. According to Forrester Research, 187 billion …

Why is Google moving into renewable energy, The Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray asks Eric Schmidt? "Because energy matters," replies the Google CEO, "and the way you solve the environment problem is you solve the energy problem. From a Google perspective it's the right thing to do for the world. It's also good for our business because we're in the information business. And a lot of the energy solutions involve a lot of information." There's certainly money in energy information, but surely this wouldn't amount to much in terms of revenue for Google, right? "Well, but we're happy to make …

It's easy to look at Big Music these days and think, "these guys haven't got a clue," with their endless piracy lawsuits and "mafia-style collection rackets from venture-backed music startups." Music will obviously be free in the future, so aren't the record labels simply delaying the inevitable? As it turns out, that's exactly what they're doing, says TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, and they're fully aware that music will be free in the future, too. At least, that's what one major industry executive tells him-that it's all part of a master plan. The exec says the labels fully understand that recorded music, …

Twitter, the microblogging sensation that the press cannot stop talking about, just put a new toolbar on its home page that displays a search box and access to a list of "trends," or fast-rising terms and topics that users are twittering about. The news comes just a few days after industry watchers started referring to the messaging service, which delivers searchable, real-time conversations to its users, as a potential threat to search leader Google. According to various sources, the new search feature is not yet available to all Twitter users, although a full-scale rollout is likely. Twitter's focus on search …

House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank stood up on Thursday and said he would be pushing to repeal the three year-old U.S. ban on online gambling, a piece of legislation which he says has hurt trade ties with the European Union. A House aid confirmed that work on drafting the legislation should be completed this month, as reported Feb. 24 in Online Media Daily. In 2006, Congress attempted to curtail online gambling in the U.S. by barring businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling. This includes payments made through credit cards, electronic …