Verizon is submitting a $3 billion (£2 billion) bid to purchase Yahoo's core Internet business, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cites an anonymous source. Though at least one more round of bidding is expected, Verizon is reportedly the leading contender.

A Verizon spokesperson declined comment when contacted by Ars this morning.

Yahoo has been shopping itself around for months in an attempt to sell off just about everything except its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. Yahoo is also looking to sell other assets including real estate and patents, but Verizon reportedly isn't interested in buying those.

Verizon is already the proud owner of AOL after buying that company for $4.4 billion (£3 billion) last year. Buying Yahoo would give the telco control over a second giant of the early Web. The AOL purchase provided Verizon with numerous news sites, a large advertising business, and more than 2 million dial-up Internet subscribers. Yahoo would give AOL a large base of website visitors and more advertising revenue.

Some potential Yahoo buyers were scared off last month when the company gave bidders presentations which "revealed the extent to which Yahoo’s online advertising business is declining," the Journal said. The $3 billion bid is lower than some of the more optimistic estimates from Yahoo insiders who predicted the core Internet business would sell for between $4 billion and $8 billion.