Sunnyvale, Calif. - Shares of Yahoo surged more than 17% in afternoon trading on Friday after The New York Post reported that Microsoft has intensified its efforts to acquire the company in a potential deal that some analysts estimate would be worth $50 billion. [more..]

London - Global news agency Reuters "looks set to endorse" a buyout offer from fellow financial news provider Thomson Corp., the Financial Times reported on Friday. [more..]

Washington - A bipartisan group of House lawmakers this week sent letters to the heads of 19 universities, that included a detailed survey asking them to relate how they protect against the use of their campus networks for illegal downloading, Inside Higher Education reported. [more..]

Washington - The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS), a non-profit that represents over 1,000 U.S. high school and college radio stations, announced on Friday that it has filed an appeal of the Copyright Royalty Board's recent royalty rate decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. [more..]

New York - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week signed legislation that increases penalties for videotaping films in the city's movie theaters, and unveiled a public awareness campaign developed with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) designed to fight movie piracy. [more..]

New York - The English Premier League, along with independent music publisher Bourne Co., on Friday filed a federal class action copyright lawsuit in New York against Google's YouTube. [more..]

Oakland, Calif. - Pandora, an online radio service that automatically creates stations based on each user's particular musical tastes, has turned off access to non-U.S. residents, saying it does not have the necessary music licenses to offer its service in other territories. [more..]

Rockville, Md. - MarketResearch.com, a retailer of market research information and services, announced on Friday that it is acquiring Thomson Business Intelligence's Market Research Profound service. [more..]

Port Washington, N.Y. - The NPD Group, a provider of consumer and retail information for a range of industries, has acquired the consumer electronics, imaging, and computer business sectors of market research firm Current Analysis. [more..]

New York - iAmplify, an online video network that sells content from experts, authors and celebrities, has raised $6 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by Kodiak Venture Partners, PEHub.com reported. [more..]

San Mateo, Calif. - YouTube has announced plans to start sharing revenue with the most popular and prolific users posting videos to its site, including "Lonelygirl15" Jessica Rose. "Because they have built and sustained large, persistent audiences through the creation of engaging videos, their content has become attractive for advertisers, which has helped them earn the opportunity to participate on YouTube as a partner," the company said on its blog. Other popular YouTube members invited to join the program include LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh and valsartdiary. [more..]

Seattle - RealNetworks said that it has signed an agreement with venerable independent record label Dischord Records, to make tracks from the label's artists available on its Rhapsody music subscription service. The deal marks the first subscription-based offering licensed by Dischord, whose artists include The Evens, Fugazi, Minor Threat and Q and Not U. [more..]

Reston, Va. - dotMobi, an Irish joint venture offering Internet addresses for mobile phones, announced this week that more than 500,000 .mobi domains have been registered in 104 countries since its commercial launch in October. [more..]

Reading, England - Microsoft has announced plans to establish a European base in Reading, England for its Microsoft Game Studios, close to Microsoft-owned studios Lionhead and Rare, GamesIndustry.biz reported. The company named Phil Spencer to head the new office. [more..]