Learning about the back-and-forth between Microsoft and Yahoo is like eavesdropping on teenagers talking about the opposite sex. Do you think she likes me? How can you tell that he's really not that into you? Well, she said that, and he said this.

Someone make it stop—now!

But today there is a new twist to the Microhoo romantic melodrama: Maybe if I can get a bunch of friends together, we can all go out and it will be a date, sort of.

Matthew Karnitschnig and Robert Guth of the Wall Street Journal report that Microsoft has been talking to Time Warner, News Corp., and others about joining it in a plan that would acquire and break up Yahoo. Under this scenario, Microsoft would get Yahoo's search business, while its partners would get the rest.

But Microsoft has apparently had trouble getting anyone to sign on. A meeting set for Monday with Yahoo's chairman to float the new idea was canceled, the Journal reports.

Henry Blodget on Silicon Alley Insider says the canceled meeting is more likely a sign that Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer is focusing on a possible deal that Kara Swisher described on All Things Digital last week.

Swisher argues that Microsoft could win over Yahoo shareholders and effectively take control of the company by improving the terms of its search-ad alternative partnership to Google and by buying a third or more of Yahoo at a hefty premium.

With Yahoo shares down 30 percent since the beginning of May, that would be an attractive proposal to many investors.

Microsoft has often appeared clueless in its dealings with Yahoo. But whatever it decides to do will be helped by the fact that Yahoo's only alternative strategy is coming under closer regulatory scrutiny.

Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post reports that the Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation into the search-ad partnership between Yahoo and Google.

While the upgrading of an antitrust investigation is not uncommon, the Post says that the kind of requests being made by the Justice Department in this case is far from routine. Investigators are seeking documents from media and internet companies, as well as from Google and Yahoo, the Post reports.