The Times is reporting that Yahoo is attempting to restart merger talks with America Online (AOL) as possible way to avoid a potential hostile take over from Microsoft. It is possible this is one of the alternatives that came from the Yahoo board meeting on Friday, where the board has apparently decided to decline the Microsoft bid. I would expect this is not the only possibility that Yahoo is courting though.

Yahoo and AOL held merger talks in the past but were unable to come to an agreement. It is believed the current situation between Yahoo and Microsoft, the impending financial downturn in the US, and Time Warner’s desire to separate AOL from their core content business could make this second round of talks a more desirable and productive conversation.

Over the last month I and others have written quite a bit about domain tasting and how registrars are taking advantage of the policy, allowing them to capture potential domain names that their customers are searching for.

ICANN describes domain tasting as “the use of the Add Grace Period to test the profitability of a domain name registration. The AGP is a five-day period following the initial registration of a domain name when the registration may be deleted and a credit can be issued to a registrar.”

The Washington Post has written an article discussing ICANN’s most recent proposal to curb domain tasting and eliminate the practice. By no longer refunding the fee that ICANN imposes on each domain transaction ICANN believes this will eliminate the process of domain tasting, at least in large quantities.

That is the question that Aaron Goldman discusses in his most recent post at Search Insider. Aaron provides some sound thinking as to why CPA could overtake CPC in the future as the preferred way in which to purchase paid search.

With the assistance of one of his fellow authors Aaron, formulates an interesting point of view and one I believe cannot be faulted. He notes that the big three search engines have all recently purchased their own advertising networks and the potential for “insider data trading” could exist. Not that anyone believes the big three would go that route, but he notes a CPA model would eliminate the largest concerns marketers would have, should that ever unknowingly happen.

Bill Hartzer has performed a very interesting piece of domain name research and written up a detailed synopsis on the way Network Solutions seems to be taking advantage of the consumers who use their domain name look-up tool.

After performing a domain name search using the Network Solutions search form, Bill shows an actual example of his search for an available domain. A few minutes later he is able to show that Network Solutions has registered it, forcing him to purchase it from them if he wants to own the domain.

This bothered him because he located the domain at another registrar for a significantly lower rate, but since Network Solutions has already registered the domain Bill wants, he is forced to pay the $34.99 that Network Solutions charges if he wants to own the rights to use the domain.