When you are fighting for your life you need to do anything you can to save it. Yahoo executives, who are fighting for their jobs, are using their most valuable asset - the Yahoo.com Homepage - in their fight against Carl Icahn.

The Yahoo homepage, which is the most visited single page on the internet, is being used to let shareholders know the "truth" about Carl Icahn and convince the voters that his plans are wrong for the future of Yahoo. As you can see from the image at the bottom of this post, Yahoo didn't just give the Icahn / Microsoft fight some meaningless real estate, we are talking big graphical call-outs on the right side and footer...space that is probably worth a very high CPM and garners millions of daily eyeballs. When you click on one of the two locations it takes you to a "Yahoo Stockholder Information" page that calls out Icahn and focuses on two big points: "The Icahn Slate Is Not the Right Answer for Yahoo!" and "Yahoo!'s Experienced Board and Executive Leadership Are Positioning Yahoo! for Future Success". Basically, Yahoo points out the many flaws in Icahn's plans and tries to discredit his business experience by calling out his not so good recent involvements with public companies.

So what exactly is Yahoo looking to get out of this? First they are trying to get every single Yahoo voting shareholder to side with the current executive team, there is even a convenient "vote now" button. Secondly, I am sure that Yahoo, who has been hammered recently in the press, could use any positive sway in public opinion. However, I would assume that any shareholder that cares to vote are well versed in what is been going on since every major media outlet online and offline has covered this Yahoo / Microsoft / Icahn battle in great detail from the beginning.

To me this reeks a bit of desperation, however it is understandable desperation. The fact that Yahoo has leveraged its homepage for their proxy fight shows that this battle very close - probably even more close than anyone expected.

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