Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

In the end, the undoing of Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo. While the main reason Microsoft dropped its bid was a disagreement over price.

At least, that’s what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer maintains. As outlined in the letter he sent Saturday to his Yahoo counterpart, Jerry Yang, Microsoft discarded the option of a hostile takeover when Yahoo threatened to outsource part of its search advertising to Google.
Deriding the Google Factor

“We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a ‘hostile’ bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo today,” Ballmer wrote. “In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo undesirable to us for a number of reasons.”

It’s fair to assume that Ballmer’s hatred for the search giant grew this weekend.

An outsourcing deal would send a confusing message to Yahoo advertisers and prevent Yahoo from offering clients the benefits of a unified platform for both display and search advertising, Ballmer wrote.

He states convincingly that engineers working on Yahoo’s ad systems would head for the door, and that regulatory and legal problems would rain down on Yahoo and any company that acquired it.

“Accordingly, your apparent plan to pursue such an arrangement in the event of a proxy contest or exchange offer leads me to the firm decision not to pursue such a path,” Ballmer wrote.
Playing the Spoiler

[Source: Yahoo News]

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. - Amazon.com is suing New York over a new law that requires out-of-state online companies to collect sales tax from shoppers in New York.

“We are challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted legislation in New York,” Amazon spokeswoman Patricia Smith said.

Officials estimated the state would gain about $50 million by requiring Internet giants such as Amazon.com to collect state sales tax. New Yorkers, like residents of many states, are currently on an honor system to report their online spending when they file state tax returns.

The law applies to companies that don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence in New York but have at least one person in the state who works as an online agent — basically someone who links to a Web site and receives commissions for related sales.

Businesses with a physical presence in New York already collect the state sales tax on online purchases. The proposed law would apply to companies that have $10,000 or more in New York sales.

The suit argues the change unfairly targets Amazon, is overly broad and vague, and violates the commerce clause of the constitution because it imposes tax-collection obligations on out-of-state entities.

New York state has argued that the law closes a “tax loophole.”

Tom Bergin, a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, said the change is a necessary update for modern times.

“Everyone in New York state either pays sales tax on articles that they buy or is required to pay sales tax on articles that they buy,” he said. “This is not a new law, this is just amending the law to bring some of the new technology — the Internet — into compliance.”

Bergin would not comment on the lawsuit.

BOSTON - A group of state attorneys general is taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.

The high court decided a year ago that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take action.

But 17 states and others said in a court filing Wednesday that the EPA has not issued a decision on regulation. Their court filing seeks to compel the EPA to act within 60 days.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said the EPA is failing to deal with the dangers of global warming.

An EPA spokesman did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s court action include Coakley and attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, plus the city of New York, and the mayor and city council of Baltimore.

[Source: Yahoo News]

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama’s big national lead over Hillary Clinton has all but evaporated in the U.S. presidential race, and both Democrats trail Republican John McCain, according a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
 
The poll showed Obama had only a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 44 percent over Clinton, down sharply from a 14 point edge he held over her in February when he was riding the tide of 10 straight victories.

Illinois Sen. Obama, who would be America’s first black president, has been buffeted by attacks in recent weeks from New York Sen. Clinton over his fitness to serve as commander-in-chief and by a tempest over racially charged sermons given by his Chicago preacher.

The poll showed Arizona Sen. McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, is benefiting from the lengthy campaign battle between Obama and Clinton, who are now battling to win Pennsylvania on April 22.

McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll.

That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent.

“The last couple of weeks have taken a toll on Obama and in a general election match-up, on both Democrats,” said pollster John Zogby.

Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent, narrower than his 50 to 38 percent advantage over her in February.

“It’s not surprising to me that McCain’s on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side,” Zogby said

Obama gave a speech on Tuesday rebuking his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for sermons sometimes laced with inflammatory tirades but said he could not disown him and it was time for Americans to bind the country’s racial wounds.

The poll showed Obama continues to have strong support from the African-American community but that he is experiencing some slippage among moderates and independents.

Among independents, McCain led for the first time in the poll, 46 percent to 36 percent over Obama.

He was behind McCain by 21 percent among white voters.

Zogby attributed this to a combination of the fallout from Clinton’s victory in Ohio earlier this month and the controversy over Wright’s sermons.

“And, just the closer he gets to the nomination, the tougher questions whites ask about an African-American candidate,” Zogby said.

The March 13-14 poll surveyed 525 likely Democratic primary voters for the matchup between Clinton and Obama. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

For the matchup between McCain and his Democratic rivals, 1004 likely voters were surveyed. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters “Tales from the Trail: 2008″ online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

Associated Press

MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia and the U.S. still disagree over a missile shield for central Europe, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the system “would not constitute a threat” to Moscow.

After talks with Mr. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Lavrov told a news conference that the U.S. remains determined to deploy missile defense facilities in central Europe and that Russia continues to oppose those plans. But both Mr. Lavrov and Ms. Rice voiced confidence that Washington and Moscow can continue to work constructively on this and a wide array of issues.

“When we have differences, we can talk about them in an atmosphere of mutual respect,” Ms. Rice said, agreeing with Mr. Lavrov that the two sides do not agree about the positioning of the missile defense system.

Mr. Gates, joining Mr. Lavrov and Ms. Rice at a news conference, said that “we’ve leaned very far forward in this to provide assurance” that the system is not a threat.

“I would say they listened very carefully,” Mr. Gates said. “President Putin took extensive notes last night and there was a lot done during the day today. That said, the full range of what we are now prepared to offer to discuss with the Russians is really just now after the day’s talks being put down on paper, so the Russians will not see this until this evening. You have already heard the foreign minister positively characterize the ideas. … Now they need to study them in greater detail. And I would expect and hope that we would hear back reasonably quickly.”

Mr. Lavrov said that the two sides had “discussed contentious issues where we have not reached agreement.” He also said the best way to avoid the problem “is to not set up this preferred positioning site at all.”

Despite tensions over the missile defense system, Mr. Lavrov had said earlier that Moscow would do what it could to keep relations with the U.S. on an even keel as Russian President Vladimir Putin steps down this spring.

A senior U.S. official traveling with the Cabinet secretaries confirmed that the U.S. presented a document to the Russians on Monday outlining what the U.S. thinks are the main issues that define the relationship between the two nations. The official was not specific but indicated that the issues include those that have troubled the Russians the most, such as the U.S. plan for a missile shield.

During a brief greeting witnessed by reporters Monday, Mr. Putin did not mention U.S. plans for the missile shield system in Poland and the Czech Republic — a proposition that has stoked Cold War rhetoric about an imperial U.S. meddling at Russia’s doorstep.

Mr. Gates and Ms. Rice came into the talks exploring whether U.S. concessions have softened Putin’s opposition to the shield system.

Ms. Rice said the two sides did agree during their talks here to set up a “joint strategic framework document” spelling out the various elements of U.S.-Russian relations.

“I, for one, have found the discussions useful. I have found them constructive,” she said. Ms. Rice said she was glad the Russian side had agreed to look at the missile shield proposal “more closely.”

“We have work to do,” she acknowledged.

Although President Bush was expected to see Mr. Putin during a NATO summit next month, the two-day visit closes a chapter in negotiations with Mr. Putin as president.

Greeting Mr. Gates and Ms. Rice in his ornate office on Monday, Mr. Putin recalled that they had held talks last October — a session dominated by differences over missile defense and marked by sharp rhetoric from the Russian president.

“Six months have passed and we believe that in some of these issues we can probably dot the I’s and reach final agreement,” Mr. Putin said.

Even before the Americans arrived, Mr. Bush had sent Mr. Putin a letter framing the discussions. Mr. Bush wanted to make sure Mr. Putin stuck to the script, and U.S. participation in the unusual session hinged on Putin’s agreement.

“The president wanted to assess whether there was openness to cooperation on some of these issues that have been difficult, like missile defense,” Ms. Rice told reporters afterward. “He wanted to see … whether President Putin is really interested in pursuing progress on a number of fronts.”

Copyright © 2008 Associated Press