With all the backlash surrounding the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo, it seemed only a matter of time before Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang was foreced out.  There’s also the 60% decrease in Yahoo’s value since Yang took over last year, but It’s questionable what percentage of that is attributable to Yang and what percentage is attributable to the market drop as a whole.  Regardless, I have to imagine that the board and employees of Yahoo are secretly (or maybe publicly) celebrating his departure and hoping that the market sees this as a new hope for the future of Yahoo.

Breaking away from elections and politics for a bit and moving to the more mainstream, Google has announced today that it is ending it’s advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid a legal battle with federal antitrust regulators.  From the outside this sounds like a great thing for Google and another nail in the coffin for Yahoo’s long term prospects.

Yahoo stock was up considerably today as investors considered whether or not this would reopen discussions with Microsoft, which frankly seems like  amuch better fit, although I truly believe that even the merged companies would soon become a rounding error in Google’s advertising success.  As an advertiser, there are a lot of options out there, but very few offering the same CPC value as Google.  At this point Microsoft has declined to comment, although I suspect that their consideration for this deal is soured and any offer Yahoo receives from Microsoft will reflect a significantly reduced market value.