For those of you following at home, Microsoft offers up $44 billion for Yahoo!, Google asks “Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?” Microsoft responds, “The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising. The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet.” And Eric Schmidt calls Jerry Yang to see if he can help. All the while no one can talk about anything else on the web, the stock is at $29.37 (versus the $31-per-share bid) and the $44.6 billion bid would place Yahoo! at number 91 on world GDP, directly ahead of Tanzania, Lebanon and Latvia, as well as 136 other countries.

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