OPINION: Yahoo board brought this on themselves: Eric Jackson

(Eric Jackson owns 246 shares of Yahoo Inc and says investors owning a total of 3.2 million Yahoo shares have joined his group of dissidents at www.youchoose.net/yahoo. The opinions expressed here are those of the author. They should not be seen as representing the views of Reuters)

By Eric Jackson

NAPLES, Florida (Reuters) - It's seven weeks until Independence Day.

On July 3, Yahoo holds its annual meeting. These gatherings are usually mere formalities, where incumbent directors get re-elected with 99 percent of the vote.

Yahoo's shareholders won't be so kind this year.

The breakdown in discussions with Microsoft is the latest disappointment they have had to endure.

Yahoo's stock has been flat for four years, while the NASDAQ has climbed 30 percent and Google is up 440 percent.

Yahoo has also steadily lost search market share, paid lavish executive compensation, missed the opportunity to buy Facebook, and endured steady executive turnover.

Yahoo's board is ultimately responsible for this but it is essentially unchanged over this time period.