Summary: Yahoo! makes some moves which suggest a possible departure from Microsoft, the NSA, and other rogue entities which view society as an enemy

THERE were recently some news reports suggesting that Yahoo! might quit the relationship with Microsoft (we covered this weeks ago), which was more like a rape than a relationship. It was a forced marriage, worse than a shutgun wedding. Among the 'rapists' there were Microsoft proxies like Icahn, who seems to be up to other evil "raids" [1] (he takes pride in being a corporate "raider").

We would like to remind readers, as this is very important, that Yahoo fought (in court) against the NSA until Microsoft took over Yahoo! (and thereafter Yahoo joined PRISM, of which Microsoft was member #1).

Yahoo has just made this strategic step which suggests that Yahoo, which let the NSA and GCHQ (perhaps involuntarily) infiltrate video chats, wants some real change. Now that NSA is competing with SCO [2] over the title of most hated entity (in the eyes of the FOSS community) Yahoo would be wise to distance itself from the NSA and its special partner Microsoft. It's never too late for redemption and encryption.

Icahn should have really been put in prison a long time ago, but in a corrupt economy where greed and fiancial aggression are glorified don't expect much to that effect. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Icahn, Andreessen Battle for eBay, PayPal

   "Corporate raider Carl Icahn has turned his attention to eBay, announcing a proxy fight for board seats via open letters to shareholders. Icahn thinks the company should spin off its PayPal division and distribute the proceeds to the shareholders. The current board thinks differently, but Icahn says that's partly because of massive conflicts of interest held by board members (Netscape founder, now venture capitalist) Marc Andreessen and (Intuit CEO) Scott Cook. For Exhibit A and B, Icahn mentions the large profits Andressen Horowitz made from eBay's earlier spinoff of Skype, and its subsequent sale to Microsoft; and the fact that Intuit and PayPal are competitors in the payment processing space.





2. SCO & NSA: The Great Digital Whack-A-Mole Game

   Since leaving SCO, McBride’s life has continued with the sort of gangsteresque intrigue that defined him in the days when he was Linux’s public-enemy-number-one. Last May he made news when The Salt Lake Tribune reported that he had turned over a four year old audio recording of a conversation he had with Mark Shurtleff, who had been Utah’s Attorney General when the recording was made.
   
   The conversation turned around a bad debt McBride was trying to collect.
   
   It seems that McBride invested $286,000 with businessman Mark Robbins, who had promised a $5 million return which McBride had hoped to use to cover legal expenses in the SCO vs. IBM case. Unfortunately for McBride, Robbins skipped town to avoid being served a bench warrant in an unrelated civil case and was nowhere to be found. In an attempt to collect the debt, McBride established a website, Skyline Cowboy, which the Tribune described as “a sort of virtual bounty-hunting operation aimed at flushing out Robbins.”