Microsoft to buy AOL?

Inside sources say that media giant Time-Warner is seeking to sell all or part of their America Online division. While both Yahoo and Google have been mentioned as possible suitors for such a divestiture, it appears now that Microsoft has entered the arena. Such an acquisition would further consolidate Microsoft's bid to dominate the Internet, especially regarding their seriously flawed browser, Internet Explorer. AOL and their subsidiary, Compuserv, have some 22,000,000 customers between them. The default browser supplied to them has been a proprietary version of IE until recently. With the expiration last year of a contract with Microsoft, AOL began rolling out to their Compuserv customers a new version of Netscape, which is owned by AOL. Presumably, with an ownership change, AOL and Compuserv customers would then be forced to use IE. Internet Explorer has come under fire in recent months for serious security flaws which can allow Cross Site Scripting (XSS attacks), remote execution of arbitrary code, and other issues, which Microsoft has declined to address. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Microsoft_to_buy_AOL_/0,2000061733,39212223,00.htm