We, the Internet users will loose out in a big way if the two merge. At the moment we have the choice to pick out the best from three main players - it will be very sad if, as it appears may happen, we loose this choice.

A leading UK competition lawyer told the Reg today:

"First and foremost, I'm a lawyer. That means I'll say anything, no matter how ludicrous, if I think that saying it will cause uncertainty or doubt.

"You see, we've got the corporate world so shit scared of imaginary threats that all we need to do is manufacture the slightest hint of uncertainty and me and my lawyer mates start coining it in.

"Really, man, it's fucking magic! I've been pissed for three years solid and they've never sussed. All I have to do is look grave and mumble about 'Ooh, very uncertain, need to consult....' and they chuck wonga at me. Christ! I must have paid for half of Bolivia by now! God help me if there's a war!"

Paris cos she's probably cleverer than most of the lawyers it's my misfortune to have to deal with.

Yahoo owns Zimbra, the open-source email drop-in replacement for Outlook and Exchange, which works like a dream (from personal experience). Now why would Microsoft want Zimbra ;-)

It is just a hands in the pants approach. That, my friends, is the Corporate American Way.

Sam. It is quite clear you have an adequate level of English to know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose' but may I applaud you for the emotive 'GHHHNNNN!!!'.

It really did make me laugh out loud.

I was somewhat amused by the "GHHHNNNN!!!" as well. And I would like to join your Campaign for Correct English. It really gets on my wich seeing O and apostrophe abuse. GHHHNNNN!!!

Where do I sign?

"The obvious initial fear could be that Microsoft would bundle search into Windows. "

Shame on you! Can't you think of a more imaginative conspiracy theory than that?

A lot of (naive) people think that the Internet = the Web = their search engine. If Micros**t own both their PCs and their search engine, it has total control over their use of the Web. Micros**t Windows will make them use Explo*er, which will send them to Micros**t Yahoo!, which will deny knowledge of any web pages that haven't been created by Micros**t tools, and deliver its own search results in a form that only Explo*er can render. A much more effective way of disposing of your rivals than just making their code run v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

On Radio 5 last night they played a clip of some big Microsoft head honcho. He said that Microsoft buying Yahoo would be good for consumers because it would increase competition (roflmfao)!

Microsoft don't want to create competition, they want to CRUSH competition. Only in the US, with its monopoly-friendly protectionist attitudes to home-grown megacorps, could anyone see the reduction of realistic Google alternatives from two to one as a way of improving competition.

Microsoft want to take over the whole IT world, and anything that helps slow this down has to be a good thing. Go EU!

This is not about Microsoft buying "Yahoo", but about buying Yahoo and all the associated projects that have been bought by yahoo in the past. Flickr, del.ici.ous, Bix, MusicMatch, Zimbra, BlueLithium, DialPad, BuzzTracker and Dogg, the list goes on. Yes, yahoo! also has a search engine, an instant messenger userbase and a cute "question/answer" website to pilfer, but the major impact of the acquisition is in the vast wealth of "free" data microsoft buys with this. Flickr to contribute to the dragonfly project. Del.ici.ous, buzztracker and dogg to contribute to monitoring what's alive in the blogosphere (who invented that word? it's sickening to use). MusicMatch to boost zune, zimbra to be pilfered for outlook, dialpad and yahoo messenger for integration into microsoft's live service and competition to skype (but probably for mysterious reasons just slightly more expensive to use), blue lithium for behaviour network modeling (the xbox divisions will love the data that rolls out of that). Effectively, this is a textbook hostile takeover. Obtain the parent, ransack the children, and in a few years we can expect an silent cancellation of all the projects that have been assimilated by MS but no longer generate new data.

Sadly, the acquisition doens't lead to a monopoly - there are still a handful of competitors left, so the "free market" mechanism that drives capitalism still applies. While morally deplorable, this is the way business works on a global scale. If the investors like the money microsoft offers enough, the deal will go through, regardless of how much the EU wants to stop it - both companies are US based, the EU has no authority in this matter.

You mean there is more than one search engine now?

(and how come that one search engine does not have an option to "search only for manufacturers' websites" for products? I get SO tired of wading through hundreds of punters pages looking for whoever actually makes (at least nominally) some particular product).

I would like to congratulate The Register for seeing sense over the whole Yahoo / exclamation mark thing, and deciding not to call this article "Euro! lawyers! see! tortuous! road! ahead! for! Microsoft's! Yahoo! bid!". That would have been too much. Thank! you!

Let Micros~1 waste a large chunk of their war chest buying a crap search engine I never use. That'll make two shits into one. Fine by me. Fines from the US and EU to follow by 2010.

I can't believe that Ballmer is prepared to pay $44m to come in 2nd. LOSER.

Search use to be tired to microsoft in windows (well in IE which people who would use a default search, call windows) in IE7 MS actually opened it up so typing in the address bar/search box would go to another (eg Google) where as before type an address wrong and search would instantly take you to micrsoft search which never seemed any use.

Has the world finally gone fully bi-polar syndrome skunk induced schitzophenia crazy?

40+ billion greenbacks for some recycled news, some email not-as-good-as-gmail and a few games of pool??? Good grief

Any company that peddles backward software with zero innovation should be investigated just for having 40 billioneys lieing around unused.