Yahoo ousts CEO Carol Bartz

Carol Bartz was fired Tuesday as Yahoo Inc.'s chief executive almost three years into a tenure in which the company fell short of the turnaround she was charged with leading.

The media and search-engine company said Bartz will be replaced by chief financial officer Timothy Morse on an interim basis. The company plans to search for a permanent replacement for Bartz.

Bartz, 63, has had a rocky tenure at Yahoo since she was appointed CEO in January 2009. Most recently, Yahoo settled a dispute surrounding a Chinese payment service called Alipay in a way that ended up diminishing Yahoo's stake in the company.

Bartz was hired in January 2009 to engineer a turnaround after Yahoo fell further behind Internet search leader Google Inc. under its two previous CEOs, its co-founder Jerry Yang and former movie-studio boss Terry Semel.

Yahoo made more money under Bartz because of layoffs, service closures and other cost-cutting moves since her arrival.

Google, though, has become even stronger in the past two years, while Facebook, the owner of the Web's most popular hangout, has emerged as a formidable threat that's attracting more of the major marketing campaigns that once went to Yahoo.

Bartz's departure was first reported by the Wall Street Journal's All Things D technology blog.

Yahoo shares jumped 74 cents, or 5.7 per cent, to $13.65 US in after-hours trading. That's about 12 per cent higher than they were when Bartz was named CEO