News Corp. and AOL Pick Sides in MicroHoo Drama

Big day for Yahoo yesterday. In addition to tentatively agreeing to serve Google ads on its search pages, Yahoo's apparently in talks with Time Warner to fold AOL into itself, in exchange for 20 percent ownership. Time Warner will pay in cash.

Microsoft, always one to take a crappy bluff, is now in talks with News Corp. to lob a joint bid at the company anyway.

Good life lesson here: if you can't pick just one, take the whole plate.

And in other news, is anybody else uncomfortable with this escalating state of affairs? Imagine if Microsoft and News Corp. end up buying Yahoo -- freshly plush with AOL's traffic and Google's search ads. We'd have a hydra controlling search, online advertising, web content and even social networking. (News Corp. owns MySpace; Microsoft owns a whoppin' 3 percent stake in Facebook.)

Tell me the FTC won't at least raise an eyebrow.