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Hot Off the Wire – AOL’s CEO rejects $1.5M bonus; AOL posts a profit; Senator wants info about firms’ operations in China; Former Yahoo exec lands new job

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A roundup of the latest news from The Associated Press:

• AOL CEO turns down $1.5M 2009 bonus

SAN FRANCISCO — AOL Inc. CEO Tim Armstrong has turned down a bonus of at least $1.5 million in 2009, the company reported in a filing.

In the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internet company said Armstrong was entitled to the bonus but the company's compensation committee accepted his request to forego it last week.

AOL, which separated from media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. in December and began trading once again as a stand-alone company, is slated to report its fourth-quarter results on Wednesday.

AOL, which is based in New York, rose to fame in the 1990s with its legacy dial-up Internet access business, and bought Time Warner at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001. That corporate union didn't work out, though, and AOL's main business began to decline after peaking in 2002 — hurt by the rise of speedier broadband Internet connections.

For the past several years, AOL has been trying to reinvent itself as a content and advertising company. This has been difficult, though, as its advertising revenue has not been able to offset the drop in dial-up revenue.

• AOL posts profit in fourth quarter

NEW YORK — AOL Inc., newly released from its fizzled marriage with Time Warner Inc., reported a profit for the fourth quarter on Wednesday, reversing a year-ago loss brought on by huge accounting charges even as revenue fell.

Display advertising helped fuel the quarter's results even as the company's subscriber base dwindled, as did search revenue.

AOL, which runs dozens of Web sites and a shrinking dial-up Internet access business, officially split off from media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. on Dec. 10.

That ended a disastrous corporate union that began when AOL — then known as America Online — acquired the media conglomerate at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001.

On Wednesday, Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong said AOL is now a "leaner and more nimble organization," having laid off more than a third of its staff as it prepared to separate from Time Warner.

Armstrong told analysts in a conference call AOL may "experience a dampening of momentum" over the short term. But, he added, the company is "not focused on quarter-over-quarter results," but on how AOL becomes a "valuable property on the Internet."

"AOL is not a quarterly project," he said. Plans for 2010 include growing advertising, as well as the scale of local communities AOL serves.

AOL said Wednesday it earned $1.4 million, or a penny per share, in the last three months of 2009. That contrasts with a loss of almost $2 billion, or $18.52 per share, a year earlier, which included $2.2 billion worth of one-time charges.

Stripping out restructuring and other unusual expenses from the most recent quarter, AOL earned 71 cents per share. On average, analysts expected 63 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue fell 17 percent to $809.7 million but topped the average forecast of $763.5 million.

AOL said while its domestic display advertising results were positive, international display declined to more than offset gains in the U.S. The company said it plans to exit the vast majority of its unprofitable international markets.

Credit Suisse analyst John Blackledge called the quarter's results "encouraging," but added that "the story here is 2010 (and beyond)."

He rates AOL's shares "Underperform," and said in a note to investors that while sales were strong, operating costs were also higher than anticipated.

• Senator wants U.S. firms to disclose information about operations in China

WASHINGTON — A top Senate Democrat is asking 30 leading technology, Internet and communications companies to provide detailed descriptions of their operations and human rights practices in China.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois sent letters on Tuesday to technology companies including Apple Inc., Facebook and Twitter seeking information about their business in China and their plans for protecting human rights, free speech and privacy there.

Other companies that received letters include Amazon.com Inc., eBay Inc., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.

Durbin's letter comes nearly three weeks after Google Inc. said it would stop censoring search results in China and threatened to pull out of the country altogether after uncovering a hacking attack that emanated from China and attempts to snoop on dissidents.

Durbin said he is gathering information about the conduct of other big technology companies to prepare for a hearing on Google's actions in China. The hearing will also examine the Global Network Initiative, a voluntary code of conduct for Internet and communications companies that do business in countries that restrict free speech and human rights.

AT&T and Facebook said they would respond to Durbin's letter by the Feb. 19 deadline.

Twitter doesn't have an office in China, but said it will be happy to share its perspective on censorship issues.

Apple said it had no comment. Amazon, eBay, Twitter and Verizon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• Former Yahoo executive joins textbook rental firm

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — A former Yahoo executive is taking over as CEO of online textbook rental service Chegg.com.

Dan Rosensweig is leaving a job overseeing Activision's Guitar Hero video game franchise to run Chegg.

Rosensweig is best known for his four-year stint as Yahoo's chief operating officer, where he worked closely with the Internet company's former CEO, Terry Semel.

Rosensweig left Yahoo after a management reshuffling in 2006. Semel stepped aside under shareholder pressure a few months later.

Chegg, which based in Santa Clara, Calif., has been trying to shake up the college textbook industry by allowing students to rent the material required for their courses.

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