This article is about the current incarnation of Yahoo. For the previous incarnation that existed from 1995 to 2017, see Yahoo! Inc. (1995–2017). For other uses, see Yahoo (disambiguation).
Yahoo! Inc.
Yahoo! Inc. headquarters, 770 Broadway, New York City
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on media and online business. It is the second and current incarnation of the company, after Verizon Communications acquired the core assets of its predecessor and merged them with AOL in 2017.[6][7] The resulting subsidiary entity was briefly called Oath Inc.[4][8][9] In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $4.6 billion, roughly half;[10] the company would be renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019.[11]
On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced that 90 percent of the division would be acquired by American private equity firm Apollo Global Management for roughly $5 billion, and would simply be known as Yahoo; Verizon would retain a ten percent stake in the new group.[12][13] The acquisition was completed on September 1, 2021.[14]
History
Under Verizon (2017–2021)
The company maintains dual headquarters at the former AOL and Yahoo! headquarters buildings in Manhattan, New York, and Sunnyvale, California, respectively.[15]As of December2019[update], the company employed about 10,350 people.[2][16]
A year after the completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo!'s core Internet business, to invest in the Internet company's search, news, finance, sports, video, emails and Tumblr products.[17] Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major Internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers.[18] As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $350 million to $4.48 billion.[19]
The AOL deal and subsequent Yahoo! purchase were led by Verizon's management team, including Lowell McAdam (CEO), Marni Walden (EVP Product) and Tim Armstrong.[10] Walden had been tasked with merging the two entities and delivering on the promise of moving Verizon from an analog to digital platforms business.[20] Walden exited Verizon in 2017 and as later events revealed, the integration did not deliver the expected value.
Oath logo, 2017–2019
Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under an umbrella named Oath.[21] The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched.[22] Upon completion of the deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned.[22] Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets are its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan.[22] After the merger, Oath cut fifteen percent of the Yahoo-AOL workforce.[4] In 2018, Altaba sold Yahoo! Japan to SoftBank Group.
In April 2018, Verizon sold Flickr to SmugMug, for an undisclosed amount.[25]
In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath mobile apps onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones.[26] The agreement includes Oath's Newsroom, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and go90 mobile video apps (closed in July 2018), with integration of native Oath advertisements into both the Oath apps and Samsung's own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps.[27][28]
On September 12, 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1.[29]
On December 3, 2018, the company declared a new set of rules for the Tumblr community that took effect December 17, 2018, banning "adult content". This move raised objections that it harms their LGBTQ community, sexual abuse survivors, sex workers, adult content blogs, and other bloggers.[30][31] The move came after the Tumblr app was removed from the Apple App Store due to issues with child pornography,[32] leading some to speculate that the ban may have been made to regain access to the App Store.[33]
In December 2018, Verizon announced that it was cutting 10% of Oath's workforce[34] and would write down the value of the business by $4.6B. Verizon management blamed competitive pressures and that the business never achieved the anticipated benefits.[35] The move wiped out all of the goodwill on the balance sheets that accompanied the acquisitions.[10]
Verizon Media logo, 2019–2021
On January 8, 2019, Oath was renamed Verizon Media.[11]
In August 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, for an undisclosed amount that was reportedly less than $3 million.[36]
In November 2020, Verizon sold HuffPost to BuzzFeed.[37] in an all-stock deal, remaining minority shareholder in Buzzfeed.[38]
As Yahoo (2021–present)
On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced that the Verizon Media would be acquired by Apollo Global Management for roughly $5 billion, and would simply be known as Yahoo following the closure of the deal, with Verizon retaining a minor 10% stake in the new group.[13] The acquisition was completed on September 1, 2021, with the company now known as Yahoo.[14]
On September 10, 2021, Jim Lanzone, who had most recently served as CEO of Tinder, was named CEO of Yahoo, succeeding Gowrappan.[39]
Brands
Some of the digital media brands under Yahoo include:[40]
AOL is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc.
AIM was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time.
Warner Media, LLC was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City.
Yahoo! is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management and 10% by Verizon Communications.
The original incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. was an American multinational technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 2, 1995. Yahoo was one of the pioneers of the early internet era in the 1990s. Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, served as CEO and President of Yahoo from 2012 until June 2017.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon is the second-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 144.8 million subscribers as of December 31, 2023. It currently has the largest network in the United States with their LTE network covering 70% of the United States.
Yahoo! Mail is an email service offered by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yahoo! Small Business brand, before it transitioned to Verizon Small Business Essentials in early 2022. Launched on October 8, 1997, as of January 2020, Yahoo! Mail has 225 million users.
Yahoo! News is a news website that originated as an internet-based news aggregator by Yahoo!. The site was created by Yahoo! software engineer Brad Clawsie in August 1996. Articles originally came from news services such as the Associated Press, Reuters, Fox News, Al Jazeera, ABC News, USA Today, CNN and BBC News.
Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com, as well as its contributions to WordPress. The company's name is a play on founder Matt Mullenweg's first name and automatic.
Moviefone is an American-based moving pictures listing and information service. Moviegoers can obtain local showtimes, cinema information, film reviews, and advance tickets, as well as TV content and a comprehensive search tool that allows users to find theaters, channels, and streaming services offering movies and television shows. The service is owned by Born in Cleveland LLC, Cleveland O'Neal III's holding company. O'Neal is creator and producer of Made in Hollywood syndicated daytime entertainment show.
TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
Allen & Company LLC is an American privately held boutique investment bank based at 711 Fifth Avenue, New York. The firm specializes in real estate, technology, media and entertainment.
The following is a timeline of events of Yahoo!, an American web services provider founded in 1994.
Verizon Communications Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate. The company is incorporated in Delaware, and headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Verizon's capital stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue.
Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
go90 was an American Internet television service and mobile app owned and operated by Verizon Communications. The service was positioned as a mobile-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards millennials, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States.
This page is a timeline of social media. Major launches, milestones, and other major events are included.
The Internet service company Yahoo! was subjected to the largest data breach on record. Two major data breaches of user account data to hackers were revealed during the second half of 2016. The first announced breach, reported in September 2016, had occurred sometime in late 2014, and affected over 500 million Yahoo! user accounts. A separate data breach, occurring earlier around August 2013, was reported in December 2016. Initially believed to have affected over 1 billion user accounts, Yahoo! later affirmed in October 2017 that all 3 billion of its user accounts were impacted. Both breaches are considered the largest discovered in the history of the Internet. Specific details of material taken include names, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, dates of birth, and hashed passwords. Further, Yahoo! reported that the late 2014 breach likely used manufactured web cookies to falsify login credentials, allowing hackers to gain access to any account without a password.
Altaba Inc. was a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company based in New York City that was formed from the remains of the first incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. after Verizon had acquired old Yahoo's Internet business. Verizon completed its acquisition on June 13, 2017, and put the assets under a new subsidiary named Yahoo! Holdings within its newly created division, Oath. After the transaction, Yahoo! Inc. had no operating business but retained its cash holdings, partnership investments and bond portfolio, as well as certain patents that Verizon did not purchase. It reorganized as an investment fund and changed its name to Altaba Inc. on June 16. The only Yahoo! - branded interest held by Altaba was its stake in the joint venture Yahoo! Japan, which it sold to the SoftBank Group in late 2018.
K. Guru Gowrappan is the President of Viasat Inc. He is the former CEO of Yahoo and previously held leadership positions with Apollo Global Management, Alibaba Group, Zynga, Overture, and Quixey.
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$7.4 billion (2020) [1] 
