Report: Yahoo Also Interested in AOL
Add Yahoo to the list of possible suitors for America Online. Two financial outlets, TheStreet.com and the Wall Street Journal, reported on Friday that the company has shown interest in buying a stake in AOL from Time Warner.
Like MSN, Yahoo is eyeing AOL as another avenue to expand the reach of its search engine. However, unlike its smaller rival, antitrust regulators would likely review such a deal more carefully, as it would combine the two largest properties on the Web today.
Yahoo joins Microsoft, as well as Google and Comcast, in race to make a deal for AOL's portal traffic.
Despite the attention, however, AOL hasn't ever put a "for sale" sign on any part of its service. Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons also claims the driver for the company "is going to be AOL in the short term and the long term," and would increase investment in the service.
Nonetheless, AOL has not specifically denied that it would be willing to part with a portion of its business, leading to speculation that the company may accept a deal if the terms -- and price -- are right.
Yahoo is not commenting to the media on the situation.