In January, as the freshly crowned CEO of Yahoo, Scott Thompson initiated a series of dramatic acts to get the company back on track. The most notable was to make the boldest — or most boneheaded — move the head of Yahoo could make: Filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook.

The controversial move was wildly unpopular in Silicon Valley, and even among many Yahoo employees.

But after a drawn-out weeklong controversy over a fake computer science degree on Thompson’s resume, he is reportedly headed out, and global media head Ross Levinsohn is in the driver’s seat as interim CEO.

Now one of the big questions is: Will Levinsohn take steps to repair Yahoo’s relationship with Facebook, especially since it has proved to be one of the most fruitful the ailing Silicon Valley Internet giant has seen in years?

Sources say that some members of Yahoo’s board, as well as the top exec, would welcome a settlement with Facebook on the litigation. Thompson was the main advocate of the in-your-face strategy against the social networking giant, levying a barrage of legal claims at a critical time — the quiet period before Facebook’s public offering this month.

So, if Yahoo wanted to turn back the tide of rancor toward Facebook, now is the time it could happen.

The lawsuit essentially deemed Facebook a thief of Yahoo’s social innovation, claiming that were it not for Yahoo’s many years of research and development, products such as Facebook’s News Feed, privacy settings, advertising models and more would never have come into existence.

“Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo’s patented social networking technology,” one line from Yahoo’s lawsuit reads.

It’s unclear how much Levinsohn, acting as temporary CEO, will be able to change, in terms of the progress of the lawsuit. But if he’s looking to dial things back, his first call could be to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who would be instrumental in reaching some sort of detente in the case.

The initial act of aggression from Yahoo caught many in technology — including Yahoo’s employees — by surprise.

That’s because the various partnerships that the pair have struck in recent years have been hugely successful.

Yahoo’s Facebook-integrated Social Bar application, for example, has essentially been a traffic funnel from Facebook to Yahoo, with nearly 40 million monthly active users accessing the application, according to AppData statistics, and it is now one of the top Facebook apps.

It’s what Director of Product Development Jonathan Katzman called, in an interview last year, “the future of social for Yahoo.”

Finding a middle ground in some sort of settlement with Facebook could win back Yahoo detractors, a culture that praises innovation and largely rebuffs the practice of patent litigation as an act of trolling.

Facebook declined to comment, as did Yahoo, but several sources said to expect some movement sooner than later.

It’s not clear why Microsoft (MSFT) inked such a licensing deal. But it’s worth noting that at least a few of the patents included are cited in a lawsuit Acacia (ACTG) filed earlier this year against Apple (AAPL), Research In Motion (RIMM), Motorola (MOT) and a bunch of other smartphone makers.

Now, Microsoft wasn’t named in that suit. But it is launching a brand new mobile OS on Monday, which makes the timing of this Acacia deal interesting. At the very least, it makes you wonder if Acacia, which is often decried as a patent troll, has been threatening to add Microsoft’s name to the infringer list.

“The Internet [is] completely over. The Internet [is] like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.”

— Musician Prince explores a new vocation: Internet troll

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

–Clifford Stoll, “The Internet? Bah!” Newsweek, Feb. 27, 1995

The first is about Web “trolls,” who plague politicians’ Web sites by posting negative comments and links; the second looks at the Geek Squad of Best Buy; the third is about Queen Elizabeth II’s new YouTube site; and the fourth looks at a blogger who posts critically while also living in Havana, no easy task.

Internet Trolling

Geek Squad

YouTube Save the Queen

Cuban Blogger