AOL Time Warner was a merger looking for a reason. It never made sense to me. It was just a part of the manic Dot Com bubble. I believe it was Steve Case's attempt at a REALLY big score. With a success like AOL, how big a score did he need. Apparently the old school business of Time Warner, with it's heavy weight reputation in more conventional media was the stamp of approval Mr. Case pined for. Of course, the billions in increased valuation didn't hurt either. I talked about MCI, Qwest, AOL being frauds in 2000. I knew they were at least over-valued. I had no idea they were involved in the level of fraud they were. Sometimes I don't like being right.

SEC Is Preparing to Charge Time Warner in AOL Ad Sales (TechNews.com)