Yahoo! CEO to Quit-Now's the time to move on Alibaba.com

In a surprise announcement today Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang has announced his departure from the company he helped found.

As we and many others within the shark community have been highlighting it was under Jerry Yangs tenure that Yahoo! invested over one billion dollars in B2B web portal Alibaba.com which quickly became recognised as the New York Stock Exchange for hundreds of tons of dried sharks fin sales on the Internet-daily.

Under Yangs governance Yahoo's investment in shark finning was put aside as "a cultural practices issue". Meanwhile other Fortune 500 companies from Disney to Royal Thai Airlines bowed out of shark fin involvement in any form citing the need for large corporations to "show leadership on animal issues".

Now is the time for the shark community to remind Yahoo! of it's obligations beyond profits and beyond billion dollar agreements with Chinese web portals. Yahoo's incoming CEO will have a crippled company on his hands and there's a good chance Yahoo! will be desperately looking for eligible business partners to shore up mounting losses in revenue.

If there was anytime in Yahoo's history where uncomfortable and public issues such as the live dismemberment of animals for profit would have an impact it is now. The new CEO of Yahoo! will be looking for any way to quickly change the companies fortunes and image and a reversal of this horrific investment shark finning would be a perfect first step.

It's a step our community will have to push Yahoo! into but time, for once, is on our side.