According to the Times of London, Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo's search business. The Wall Street Journal says the story is utter hokum.

The British paper puts the price at $20 billion - although all of Yahoo was only worth $15.96 billion as of Friday. However, it says "senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed."

And maybe that's because it's reportedly an incredibly convoluted deal.

The Times says Microsoft is backing its own management team to take control of Yahoo now that the company is looking to replace CEO Jerry Yang and has no strategy to speak of.

It thinks Jonathan Miller, the ex-CEO of AOL - the guy whose non-compete prevented him from getting involved with Yahoo before - and Ross Levinsohn, the ex-president of Fox Interactive Media, "have been lined up to lead the new management team."

It says Microsoft would finance them to the tune of $5 billion. They would get another $5 billion from "external investors." The money would be used to buy enough convertible preferred shares and warrants to give them over 30% of Yahoo. And the external investor would get three of Yahoo's 11 board seats.

The deal Microsoft is supposedly trying to cut with Yahoo is a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business with a two-year call option to buy it for $20 billion, leaving Yahoo with e-mail, messaging and content and perhaps as much as $2 billion a year from the operating agreement.

However, the Journal claims to have Levinsohn on the record saying the Times report is "total fiction."

It also says "that's also the essential word from all key players regarding the Times' fanciful report. BoomTown has spoken to top sources at Yahoo and Microsoft too and all scoff at such a deal taking place or that either side has been in any such discussions of late."