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A source inside Yahoo says the company is reconsidering a previously discussed business partnership with Google as an alternative to Microsoft's $44 billion hostile takeover offer. Yahoo believes that offer, at $31 a share, significantly undervalues the company. Private equity firms and News Corp. have been named as other possible suitors for Yahoo, but neither are seen as realistically able to get a deal together. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google CEO Eric Schmidt called Yahoo cofounder and CEO Jerry Yang to offer Google's help in thwarting an unwanted Microsoft takeover of Yahoo.

Reuters, which broke the story, does not go into detail about what a Google/Yahoo partnership would entail, but it likely wouldn't include a merger or acquisition because of antitrust concerns. Instead, Google would likely guarantee ad revenues in exchange for access to inventory on Yahoo's pages, much as it does already for News Corp.'s MySpace.