Billionaire inventor/corporate gadfly Carl Icahn, who owns 5 percent of Yahoo and is now a board member, continues to publicly advocate a MIcrosoft deal for the portal site. Icahn has at least two board members aligned with his positions (former Viacom CEO Frank J. Biondi Jr. and former Nextel CEO John H. Chapple) based on an earlier settlement that saw him and the two handpicked others added to the Yahoo board.

Since Icahn joined the Yahoo board, and since the rejection of the multiple Microsoft offers, the company has lost roughly 40 percent of its value.

Yahoo and Google just resubmitted their proposed paid search agreement with some modifications in hoping to mollify critics and pass US Justice Department muster. The Google paid search deal was presented to shareholders as an alternative to the more narrow Microsoft search deal that followed the failure of the outright acqusition of Yahoo.

If the newly revised deal fails, Icahn will have considerably more ammunition to argue for renewed talks with Redmond.

Related Topics: Google & Yahoo Ad Deal | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling