Yahoo Attempts To Increase User Base

A few days ago I noticed that the Yahoo home page had changed:



If you notice, suddenly there's a "Start on Yahoo" link to the left of their logo. Put this in combination with the news about the Yahoo Instant Messenger "upgrade" which takes a page straight out of the spyware creators, and forces the installation of the Yahoo search bar, changes the default search and home page, and scans your IM chat sessions and create links to Yahoo search results, definitions or translation tools.

Combine this with a recent report that Yahoo's marketshare has crept up on Google, and the news of Google's recent efforts to keep visitors - through Google Talk and Google Desktop 2.0, for example - it all points to an effort to boost the almighty YHOO, but at what price?