Google: Microsoft's Yahoo bid raises Trouble.

Google: Microsoft's Yahoo bid raises Trouble. Microsoft's US$44.6 billion "hostile" bid "raises troubling questions," said David Drummond, Google chief legal officer, in a blog post on Sunday. A Microsoft-Yahoo merger could threaten the openness on which the Internet is based, according to a Google executive. Microsoft and Yahoo together have a large share of the e-mail and instant messaging accounts, as well as two of the most popular Web portals. Drummond wondered about the possibility that Microsoft could use its dominance in the PC software market to unfairly limit access to competitors' Web services.

Intent on upsetting Microsoft's offer for Yahoo, Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt made a personal phone call to Yahoo's founder, Jerry Yang, to propose working together. Yahoo has not publicly responded to Google's approach, which was leaked to the American media, and is yet to outline its position in response to Microsoft's takeover offer.

The emergence of an alternative bidder remains a possibility. Time Warner, AT&T and Comcast are all viewed as possible entrants to the battle. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, however, has said it is not preparing a bid. Yahoo said on Saturday that it is evaluating the unsolicited bid.