More On AOL-Google

aolgoogle1.gifNYT: Lots of color. Saul Hansell says AOL rebuffed “aggressive overtures” from Microsoft, opting for Google after the search company agreed to give AOL preferential treatment in the form of “favored placement.” He says matters came to a head Thursday night as TW execs shuttled between separate rooms at the Time Warner center holding the Google and Microsoft teams; around 9 p.m., TW Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons entered the Google room and delivered the news to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Their Microsoft counterpart Steve Ballmer got the bad news in a call from Parsons Friday morning.

WSJ (sub. rec.): The current deal set to expire at the end of 2006 will be extended for five years. Google will include AOL’s portal and its offshoots in the sponsored search results and will include AOL video in search results.

Dow Jones: The reports give Carl Icahn another chance to go after Time Warner’s execs and board; he called the negotiations a “travesty.” he repeated an earlier allegation that TW was refusing to talk to bidders who wanted control of AOL as part of any deal. Icahn: “After three year of literally doing nothing, Time Warner management should give shareholders the right to decide if AOL should be sold.” (Of course, anyone who reads paidContent knows the “literally doing nothing” accusation has little basis in fact. He may not like what they’ve done but that’s a different issue.)

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