Marissa Mayer to exit after Verizon acquisition as Yahoo becomes Altaba

Yahoo Inc. said on Monday that it will cut down its board after completing acquisition deal with Verizon Communications Inc., it is reported also that several executives including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer and co-founder David Filo, will step down as directors. After the sale of its core internet business, the company will change its name to Altaba Inc. from RemainCo, Yahoo said in a regulatory filing. Altaba’s remaining assets include Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Yahoo Japan. The name is a combination of the words “alternate” and…

Share this
Read More

Verizon will buy Yahoo for $4.8 billion

US internet firm Yahoo will be sold to American telecoms firm Verizon Communications for nearly $5bn (£3.8bn) in cash. Yahoo will be combined with AOL, another faded internet star, which Verizon bought last year. The deal does not include Yahoo’s valuable stake in Chinese firm Alibaba. The price tag for the deal is well below the $44bn Microsoft offered for Yahoo in 2008 or the $125bn it was worth during the dot.com boom. Verizon said the deal for Yahoo‘s core internet business, which has more than a billion active users…

Share this
Read More

The 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigative Report (DBIR) Is Out

10 African countries featured including Kenya and South Africa The 2016 DBIR by Verizon has been released. The report has revealed that there has been a 16% increase in ransomware attacks over the last 12 months, ItNewsAfrica reports. According to the DBIR, 89% of attacks involved financial or espionage motivations. Financial motivations were a clear catalyst. Because of the organizations that are being targeted and how prevalent ransomware has become, ransomware is a hot topic. Businesses have a higher degree of risk attached to them even though every individual is susceptible to…

Share this
Read More

Netflix caught secretly throttling traffic on AT&T and Verizon for the past 5 years

A message Netflix gave Verizon home Internet customers during a money dispute in 2014.

The Wall Street Journal last week confirmed a researcher’s findings that the video giant had been secretly throttling traffic reducing the default bitrate to 600kbps in order to help users stay under their data caps on Verizon and AT&T’s mobile networks, and has been doing so for the last five years.  The practice does not extend to Sprint or T-Mobile , who Netflix feels are more “consumer friendly.” Netflix’s admission comes only a week after T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said that AT&T and Verizon deliver Netflix video at a resolution of…

Share this
Read More

Understanding the Copyright’s Volition Requirement After Aereo

Jonathan’s post continues DisCo’s ongoing coverage of the Aereo case.  Last week, Prof. Michael Carrier wrote a post for DisCo on the possible effect of Aereo on investment.  Previously, DisCo writer Matt Schruers guest-posted on SCOTUSblog about how Aereo creates uncertainty for the cloud. One of the great attractions (or frustrations) of copyright law is that it is based on metaphysical distinctions. The most obvious of these is the idea/expression dichotomy. The Second Circuit in Computer Associates v. Altai observed that “drawing the line between idea and expression is a tricky business.”…

Share this
Read More

Germany cancels Verizon contract over spying anxiety

The German government has cancelled a contract with Verizon over concern that US firms may be giving data to US authorities. Verizon has provided internet services to a number of German government departments and the current contract was due to run out in 2015. The firm did not comment on the move. There was anger in Germany over allegations that a US agency bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone. Earlier this month Germany announced an investigation into those allegations which were made by a former contractor of the US National Security…

Share this
Read More

Tim Wu,The Father of Net Neutrality Returns to Do Battle With Comcast

Tim Wu saw firsthand how people can mess with the internet. Fifteen years ago, he landed a marketing job with a network equipment maker called Riverstone Networks. Riverstone made network routers, among other things, and it sold many of these to Chinese internet service providers who then used them to block traffic on their networks. After about a year, he left Riverstone, disillusioned but wiser. And today, Wu says that the time he spent there helped cement the idea that has made him famous: net neutrality. First proposed in a…

Share this
Read More

Internet Providers Persuade FCC Panel Against Cybersecurity Recommendations

WASHINGTON—Big Internet providers seem to have talked their way out of unwelcome new recommendations on cybersecurity. Danny Yadron has specifics of how Internet providers oppose proposed cybersecurity measures put forth by an FCC panel. Photo: Getty Images. An original draft of a report by an advisory panel to the Federal Communications Commission, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, endorsed a list of concrete suggestions for major telecommunications and cable companies to tackle the cybersecurity problem. Those measures—which included steps such as controlling which employees have administrative privileges on company networks—weren’t…

Share this
Read More