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Alibaba.com, the Chinese Web portal in which Yahoo owns a 40 percent stake, is reportedly prepping for an IPO. And the smell of money draws activists in the same way blood in the water draws sharks. In a revelation ill-timed for Yahoo, which is hoping to realize more value from its stake in Alibaba, a critic accuses Alibaba of being "the New York Stock Exchange of shark fins," according to a story in BusinessWeek. One small problem for Yahoo's shark-fin sharpies, however: the practice, while distasteful to many, is not illegal in China, where Alibaba's based. Still, new Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who played a key role in negotiating Yahoo's investment in Alibaba, is surely eager to see an Alibaba IPO go off without a hitch. That alone may prompt him to pressure Alibaba to cave into activists' demands and stop the trade.