Several scholars, rights activists and journalists working on China and Taiwan issues have reported that their Yahoo e-mail accounts have been hacked into, in the latest internet incident involving China since Google's decision to stop censoring its Chinese site.

Yahoo has given its support to rival Google, denouncing an alleged cyber attack originating in China against Google's network infrastructure.

As part of the recent Microhoo deal, Microsoft will hire 400 Yahoo employees and pay the Web giant $50 million annually for three years. Also, If Microsoft cannot deliver to a certain percentage of Google's success, Yahoo can back out of the deal.

Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a long-rumoured internet search deal that will help the two companies take on chief rival Google.

Users can now personalize Yahoo.com to check other sites, including Facebook and Gmail, as well as add Web widgets that link to more than 65 other sites.

Yahoo has named Altera's CFO as its finance chief, the latest move by the Internet company to rebuild itself in the image of its new chief executive. Analyst said the hiring of Morse suggested that Bartz wanted someone to focus on "no-frills financial management."

Internet search company Yahoo announced Tuesday that it would slash 5% of its workforce, as it reported a first-quarter profit that fell sharply from a year earlier but still managed to beat Wall Street's forecasts.

As tech giants IBM, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft report earnings this week, analysts say they expect headwinds and will look for how the companies plan to grow when the economy recovers.

Yahoo is preparing to lay off several hundred workers in the first round of cuts since Carol Bartz became chief executive in January, a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. The layoffs could be announced next Tuesday, when Yahoo reports its first-quarter financial results.

According to a variety of sources, the talks are preliminary and wide-ranging, focused on what kind of commercial relationship Yahoo and Microsoft could have in the future.

In the six weeks since Carol Bartz took over as Yahoo chief executive, she's interviewed employees and executives, learned the company's businesses, assessed what's good, diagnosed what's wrong, and now reorganized Yahoo management to set it on a new course.

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has commissioned searches for several high-level executives amid a management shuffle at the Internet company, a person familiar with the matter said.

Even as the economy skids, Google keeps on rolling—just a little more slowly than it used to. Bucking the stalling economy and worsening outlook for online advertising, the search advertising titan on Jan. 22 reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results. The numbers suggest Google will keep grabbing more of the online ad market from traditional media and from struggling online rivals such as Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Yahoo will pay new CEO Carol Bartz at least US$19 million in cash and stock during her first year on the job and top it off with an incentive package likely to yield a huge windfall if she can turn around the long-struggling Internet company.

Nearly 1,500 CEOs left their jobs last year, including 221 in the technology and telecommunications sector, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Yahoo announced Tuesday that it had hired veteran technology executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO. Separately, Yahoo said President Sue Decker will resign after a transitional period.

Yahoo will tell 1,500 employees on Wednesday they are losing their jobs, after announcing in October that layoffs would occur by year's end, a person familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

Ever since it rejected a buyout offer from Microsoft early this year, Yahoo! has seen its share price head straight down and suffered a huge talent drain. This week's resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive had an air of inevitability to it, as did the recent collapse of its search deal with Google.

Yahoo is unlikely to pull out of its $1 billion-plus China investment in Alibaba Group, even after the pending departure of CEO and strong China supporter Jerry Yang, analysts said on Tuesday. "No matter who becomes the new CEO of Yahoo, I don't think they would want to sell their investment in China," said Elinor Leung, an analyst at CLSA. "They're having a tough time in the U.S., and China is the growth potential for them."

Yahoo is planning to announce major cost cutting measures including layoffs of more than 1000 staff as early as Tuesday (Oct 21) when the company is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings, according to people familiar with the matter.