The desperation of Yahoo

Has anyone else noticed the new, maximally-obtrusive ads on Yahoo.com? I use my.yahoo.com as a sort of news-and-information home page. It's nice: I have a few RSS feeds, the weather here and abroad, my currency cross-rates, and international news. Plus a few stocks. Unfortunately, I now also have these gigantic ads that take over the entire page whenever I accidentally move my mouse over the smaller version of the ad. They also suck up lots of memory, and don't always close properly when asked. Way to go, Yahoo. Are you guys really desperate now, or what? I was rather hoping Yahoo's text-based ads might become a serious competitor to Google's. Lord knows we need something better than AdSense, and even though I suspect it'll be Google that provides it, they're obviously done innovating on that front until they get some serious competition. But now, I'm beginning to think Yahoo is slipping back into don't-get-it mode. That statue incident might mean more than I originally thought... It's really pretty simple in the end. This is the Web. The barrier to entry is low. There is a lot of competition, large and small. If you treat your users with contempt, they will not be your users for long. And yes, Terry, screwing with my ability to move my mouse around counts as contempt.