Verizon Considers Pulling Plug on Yahoo Deal
- Thursday, December 15th, 2016
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Verizon is considering pulling the plug on, or paying a lower price for, its pending $4.8bn (£3.7bn) acquisition of Yahoo.
According to reports from Bloomberg, an insider has said that, following Yahoo’s disclosure of a second major email hack of over 1bn users, a legal team led by Verizon’s general counsel Craig Silliman is assessing the damage from the breaches – and working towards either killing the deal or renegotiating a lower price.
A second Verizon group led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is said to still be focused on integration planning to get Yahoo up and running – but are keen to negotiate a separation from any future legal fallout.
Verizon told Bloomberg, in an emailed statement: “As we’ve said all along, we will evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation. We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions.”
Yahoo this week disclosed details about the data breach of over 1bn user accounts in August 2013. It also revealed that an unauthorised third-party had accessed its proprietary code to learn how to forge cookies.
This all comes just three months after it disclosed that there had been a breach of 500m user accounts in 2014. It was rumoured in October that Verizon were looking for a discount after this first revelation.