Yahoo sued for spurning Microsoft

This country is lawsuit happy. For the love of the fuzzy lord, a woman spilled her McDonald's coffee on her lap and sued for millions because the coffee was hot enough to give her burns. Why not just sue to cover the medical expenses with a little extra to cover either emotional stress or money lost from having to skip work because of her injuries?

Now we have Microsoft suing Yahoo because Yahoo turned down their business offer for a merger? What the hell? Does that mean that I can sue Microsoft if they turn down my attempt to buy out the company for $50? Personally, I think that we should establish harsher penalties for either failed or frivolous lawsuits that would ensure the "victim" does not take advantage of a legal situation.

Microsoft can make an offer but that doesn't mean that Yahoo has to accept it if they think that it's not in the best interests of the company. They certainly have plenty of reasons why it would be a bad idea with Microsoft's long history with the other companies they have bought and the lawsuits that have resulted from it.

No matter what the merger mania of the shareholders that are only concerned with their stocks and not the welfare of the company. I don't believe Microsoft has any right to force Yahoo to spend a lot of money to defend itself against an offer they refused.

If Microsoft is threatened by Google, how does reducing the competion from Yahoo help in a positive way for both of them? If Microsoft wants to compete against Google than it should develope better products instead of trying to ruin Yahoo.

As for the best products, what are you comparing it to? Yahoo Mail is far better than either Hotmail or Gmail. Yahoo Messenger has better features than MSN Messenger.

Of course there are 3rd Party messengers that are better than either of those but how far are they going to get if only shareholders have their way and the mergers crush the competition because they want their bottom line profits?

And as far as advancing tech and producing the best product, my vote goes to neither yahoo nor microsoft :)

You may know something that I don't, but I'm not here to say whether or not this potential merger would be successful for investors, Microsoft, tech industry etc. And your right, perhaps these two investors are looking for a quick out by playing the system and holding Yahoo to something they know very well was not a good idea. Kudos to them for "playing the game" -- fairly or not. Yahoo employes an army of lawyers to quell such attacks and as far as I know you nor I are paying for these lawsuits.

What I do know is that Microsoft is feeling threatened by Google, rightfully so. I also believe that Microsoft has every right to go after Yahoo and I believe even more so that it's Yahoo's responsibility to consider the merger on behalf of it's shareholders. If these two clowns throw down the right gauntlet, Yahoo should pay them for misrepresenting their shareholders just to see who is the bigger kid on the block. In the end, only the courts will decide this.

When has Microsoft EVER played the game fairly? How short term can shareholders get in their thinking? What benefits to the company are you talking about if they only cut and run?Their investment is going to be worth a whole lot less if Microsoft got ahold of Yahoo since many other companies that they have bought just to squelch the competition. How about Caligari? What happened to their investors? It's not only about short term profit and the bottom line, it's about advancing tech to give the best products for the consumers. That will give the best price to the shareholders over the long term not just some that invest just to raid it while the stock price fluctuates

The point is the shareholders, the people who invest their money into yahoo believe -- and they have every right to voice their opinion on the business dealings of Yahoo -- that Yahoo turned down the deal simply because they don't want to become part of the Microsoft empire. Despite the fact that the merger (or take over) would benefit Yahoo as a business entity and thus it's shareholders.

It's Capitalism 101 and Yahoo is not playing the game fairly. I would definitely say something too, wouldn't you if you had $10,000 of your own money invested in Yahoo and had the potential to make $100,000?

And come on, how many "value- destructive" third-party deals can Yahoo really make before it closes it's doors? those "mergers", however, made many, many people tons of money as well....

How about suing Microsoft for not merging with Apple? Or Google for not merging with Viacom? Only focusing on the share price makes no sense at all since that's an easily manipulated representation of what the company is worth and not what it produces.

You can pretty much sue for any reason in this country

wow that's awesome. Can I sue Coke for breaching their duty to the shareholders by not merging with PepsiCo?