With the reports that Yelp is looking to sell itself, the speculation is bubbling up over who might be its new owner. One report puts two Internet giants at the top of the list: Google and Priceline.
The report by Brean Capital rounds out the list of 10 with the usual suspects: Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Groupon, Microsoft, Rakuten and Yahoo. Yelp would be a natural fit for Google, who is willing to pay top dollar according to the report, since they do a better job of presenting information users are looking for than Google. Travel website Princeline would be interested in utilizing Yelp's booking abilities for local businesses.
The main knock against Google, according to the San Francisco Business Times, is that the site is under fire in the European Union for supposedly engaging in monopolistic practices.
Alibaba and Rakuten are massive e-commerce sites from East Asia (China and Japan, respectively). Rakuten has a $100 million stake in Pinterest.