Hertz Buys Dollar Thrifty for $2.6 Billion: Hot Trends

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Popular searches on the Internet include Dollar Thrifty (DTG) as the car rental company has been purchased by Hertz (HTZ) for $2.6 billion in cash, or $87.50 a share.

The offer is an 8% premium to Dollar Thrifty's closing price Friday of $81. The companies said the acquisition will begin with a cash tender offer for all outstanding Dollar Thrifty shares and then a cash merger. It is subject to regulatory approval by the Federal Trade Commission.

The deal comes about five years after Hertz CEO Mark Frissora started trying to acquire the company. Hertz's most recent formal offer was in 2007 for $1.2 billion, which Dollar Thrifty shareholders rejected. Hertz also made an offer for the company in 2011 which it withdrew, citing market conditions.

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Samsung is trending as its shares continue to fall following Apple's (AAPL) victory in a patent case that resulted in Samsung being ordered to pay $1.05 billion in damages.

A California jury found that Samsung infringed on six of seven of Apple's patents and copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. Not only is the company forced to pay the sum in damages, but it could potentially face a ban on selling some of its products.

Shares of Samsung suffered their biggest daily percentage drop in nearly four years, falling as much as 8%.

Samsung's latest product, the Galaxy S III, was not included in the case. Apple reportedly plans to file for a sales injunction against Samsung; Samsung said in a letter it plans to keep legally fighting Apple.

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Dropbox is another popular search. The cloud storage service revealed it has beefed up its security measures, adding two-step security verification.

Dropbox users can set up the two-step security verification by enabling the option on the Dropbox security page and following steps through a set-up wizard. Users' phone numbers will be associated with their Dropbox accounts, and will receive a text message with a six digit verification code anytime they attempt to log in to their accounts. Dropbox will also give users an emergency code to use if they ever lose access to their phones. As another option, users can also download Dropbox's mobile authenticator app on iOS, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry.

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