Yahoo gives prime Net real estate to Icahn-bashing site
Internet pioneer has devoted a lot of precious pixels on yahoo.com site to its fight with Carl Icahn over control of the company.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Updated 9:16 a.m. PDT with Chief Executive Jerry Yang's comment about the site.
Yahoo is using its considerable Internet clout to promote its "proxy facts" Web site devoted to countering investor Carl Icahn's attempt to replace the company's board of directors with his own picks.
The company's main page includes a large link to the proxy fight site just below the main advertisement on the right side of the page, showing a purple panel that reads, "We have a couple of exclamation points to make." Given the heavy traffic to www.yahoo.com, that means a lot of people are going to see the link.
Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang mentioned the site in an internal video available to employees Friday. "Today, I'm excited to tell you that we're launching an advertising campaign online on our home page as a way to continue to make our case to stockholders," Yang said, according to a transcript of the video included in a regulatory filing. "With one of the largest audiences on the Internet, we're taking full advantage of the power of our network to remind our stockholders why voting for Carl Icahn's board of directors is a bad choice."
The "proxy facts" site itself is devoted to Yahoo's continuing counteroffensive against Icahn, leading off with an unflattering quotation from Icahn himself, presumably intended to make him look like a poor choice to steer Yahoo's affairs: "It's hard to understand these technology companies."
It also includes a link where shareholders can vote for Yahoo's board and a list showing the declining stock value of several companies in which Icahn has become involved. The vote will be tallied at Yahoo's August 1 shareholder meeting.
Yang also said in the video the company will hold an all-hands meeting with employees on Wednesday.