Under the new service, called Google One Pass, Google will keep 10 percent of revenues, compared to the 30 percent cut demanded by Apple for subscriptions sold through its online store. Google’s service will also give publishers control of consumer data, something Apple has refused to do.

Subcribers to the new service can access content on any participating Web site with one username and login. The system can be used to view individual articles, for full subscriptions and other payment plans.

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Re: Wacky–even by Google standards–stock market schemes

Google (GOOG) –let me get this straight–is apparently considering buying just under 20% of Yahoo (YHOO) shares at some elevated price, according to a post on TechCrunch yesterday, “although the goal isn’t so much to close the deal, which would almost certainly be opposed by U.S. regulatory agencies. But rather to throw another curve ball at the Yahoo Board…”

Excuse me for a second, as my brain just exploded. While I don’t doubt TechCrunch had a good source on this report, it just goes to show the level of kooky desperation and out-of-control emotion that Microsoft’s (MSFT) unsolicited bid for Yahoo has had on all the parties involved.

Were Google to actually take wacky advice like this, I would worry about more than its recent stock drop. Such a move is neither savvy nor effective (after all, Google cannot shimmy its way out of the fact that it just really just cannot have Yahoo, in whole or part, because of its huge market share in search and search advertising).

Why? It just makes me a little nervous if Google, a major U.S. corporation with lots and lots of government rules and regulations to follow, is contemplating “pretend” buying of shares of Yahoo to trip up rival Microsoft, as if it were a kid playing a stock market equivalent of Ding Dong Ditch (see helpful video below on how to do a successful DDD).

Quoting an anonymous adviser to the deal, the TechCrunch post noted: “It’s a relatively cheap way for Google to confuse the situation further, and, potentially delay or disrupt a Microsoft acquisition.”

Well, if $10 billion or more, along with inevitable shareholder lawsuits, is cheap, I guess so!

OK, not so much. But the scheme concocted by anonymous wheelers and dealers sure wins points for being interesting. And creative. I might even say: crazy like a fox.

But let’s just stick with crazy, shall we?

For a little better take on the situation, try the excellent (and, more importantly, accurate) analysis of the stock situation around the deal by The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Karnitschnig of the Deal Journal blog posted yesterday too, which I post in its entirety below (also, a picture of what Microsoft might look like if it manages to swallow Yahoo whole):

Yahoo’s Deteriorating Defenses Against the Microsoft Bid

Like a coiled python eyeing its quarry, Microsoft appears content to wait for Yahoo to exhaust its defenses before moving in for the kill.

To understand Microsoft’s sanguine approach, look no further than Google’s share price. Until Microsoft made its offer for Yahoo on Jan. 31–-then valued at $44.6 billion–-Google and Yahoo were both down about 18% on the year. Yahoo has jumped about 50% since the offer; Google has fallen a further 16%.

Part of Google’s slide is connected to concern that a combined Microsoft/Yahoo would cost it business. Still, investors appear most worried about a decline in Google’s advertising revenue. Those concerns sent its shares to a nine-month low Tuesday.

One needn’t be a certified financial analyst to surmise that were it not for the Microsoft bid, Yahoo, which faces the same challenges in the marketplace as Google, also would be getting thrashed in the stock market.

If Yahoo shares suffered the same percentage decline as Google’s have since the Microsoft offer–not an unfair assumption considering Google stock rose 12% in the 12 months before the offer and Yahoo’s fell about 35%–then Yahoo would now be trading at about $16. That is about half of Microsoft’s original $31-a-share offer, which Yahoo dismissed as “undervalued.”

If Google’s stock keeps dropping, the Yahoo board might want to solicit a new valuation. Because if Microsoft does strike, the attack is likely to be unrelenting. Microsoft won’t crush any bones, but its objective is the same as the African python’s: to swallow its prey whole.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

The Yahoo board meeting, via phone, went off today without a resolution, as BoomTown surmised in an earlier post today.

See this report on the telephonic meeting from our excellent reporting colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, Kevin Delaney and Matthew Karnitschnig.

As you can see, the breathless reporting that Yahoo’s fate was to be decided today was, shall we say, a bit premature, and Microsoft will have to wait a bit longer to claim its prize.

Of course, as we also noted, it is unlikely Yahoo will have many options other than Microsoft, given that none seem viable.

That includes the threat of doing a deal with Google to take over its search-ad business.

As BoomTown noted:

But the Google threat is just that, claim sources close to Microsoft–-a threat that is relatively empty given that it still carries with it all the monopoly issues related to Google’s dominance over the search market if struck. If Google takes over Yahoo’s search business, the thinking goes, it might as well buy the whole company, given that the regulatory headaches are the same.

Google will argue, of course, that an independent Yahoo is free to pick whatever partner it wants, if it decides to outsource its search-ad business, without noting that the pickings are pretty slim.”

And getting slimmer.

(And here’s a very good email Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget penned for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to send out to the troops, which would be a step in the right direction.)

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.