[freehunter]

This is kind of a conspiracy theory, but I have to wonder... Mayer came from Google. As we know from recent news about Asus and Android, Google has a big problem with Alibaba because of their Aliyun OS, which Google claims to be an incompatible fork of Android with pirated apps in the app store. I have to wonder if this sale isn't somehow related. Possible Yahoo wishing to distance itself from Alibaba?

[brd]

This sale to Alibaba has been in the works for a long time, theres no chance that the Aliyun OS incident has anything to do with it. The timelines just don't match up.

[nagrom]

They're actually retaining 20% of AliBaba, so your theory doesn't hold. More likely, AliBaba's management want to consolidate their independence and see the use of a cash reserve to boost share price as a good thing.