Marissa Mayer To Leave Yahoo With $186 Million From Verizon Deal

Marissa Mayer To Leave Yahoo With $186 Million From Verizon Deal:

Marissa Mayer, the soon to be former YHOO Chief Executive, is set to make at least $186 million as a result of the internet company’s sale to Verizon Communications. The staggering figure is over seven times greater than the $23 million “golden parachute” Yahoo said last month that Mayer would receive as part of her planned departure from what’s left of the company after the sale to Verizon.

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Yahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence

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Yahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence:

Just days after admitting that some 500 millions of its email accounts were hacked (allegedly Russians, of course), the Yahoo confessional continues as Reuters reports, somewhat stunningly that, Yahoo secretly built software to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for US intel officials. Yahoo’s reaction to this: we are “a law abiding company.”

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Following claims of state-sponsored attacks of its customers’ email accounts, Reuters reports, Yahoo also hacked its own customers’ accounts…

Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.

Read moreYahoo Admits It Secretly Hacked All User Accounts For US Intelligence

Yahoo Confirms Half A Billion User Accounts Hacked, Blames “State-Sponsored Actor” For Breach

Yahoo Confirms Half A Billion User Accounts Hacked, Blames “State-Sponsored Actor” For Breach:

“A recent investigation by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has confirmed that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor. The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. “

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It’s Official: Verizon To Acquire Yahoo Core Assets For $4.8 Billion

It’s Official: Verizon To Acquire Yahoo Core Assets For $4.8 Billion:

Almost a decade after Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo for $50 billion, moments ago Verizon confirmed recent rumors that it would acquire Yahoo operating business for approximately $4.83 billion in cash, far below initial estimates floated several months ago that the segment could sell for as much as $10 billion. So how much does Marissa Meyer collect for “creating value” at the company during her 5 year tenure? Somewhere around $300 million.

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AND NOW: Yahoo Finance Editor-In-Chief Is Sad: “We’re Suffering The Consequences Of Too Much Democracy”

Yahoo Finance Editor-In-Chief Is Sad: “We’re Suffering The Consequences Of Too Much Democracy”:

Following James Traub’s mind-numbingly-elitist rebuttal of the democratic rights of “we, the people” in favor of allowing “they, the elite” to ensure the average joe doesn’t run with scissors, “It’s time for the elites to rise up against the ignorant masses.”

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The Brexit has laid bare the political schism of our time. It’s not about the left vs. the right; it’s about the sane vs. the mindlessly angry

The Guardian’s David Van Reybrouck appears willing to take the fight for elite survival even further…proclaiming “our voting system worked well for decades, but now it is broken. There is a better way to give voice to the people…. you do not ask everyone to vote on an issue few people really understand, but you draft a random sample of the population and make sure they come to the grips with the subject matter in order to take a sensible decision. A cross-section of society that is informed can act more coherently than an entire society that is uninformed.”

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Brexit is a turning point in the history of western democracy. Never before has such a drastic decision been taken through so primitive a procedure – a one-round referendum based on a simple majority. Never before has the fate of a country – of an entire continent, in fact – been changed by the single swing of such a blunt axe, wielded by disenchanted and poorly informed citizens.

But this is just the latest in a series of worrying blows to the health of democracy, and Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief, Andy Serwer took to his Tumblr, to explain why, in his opinion, Democracy, you could argue, is pretty much like sunshine, cold beer and ice cream. They’re all great —until you have too much.

Too much democracy? That’s not possible, is it?

In fact it may be. Some economists and political scientists are suggesting as much in the wake of the Brexit vote and the subsequent wave of “Leave the EU” sentiment that’s sweeping across Europe. And you can look to a big honking use case right here in the US to make that argument.

It’s way too early to tell how Brexit will affect the economy of the UK at this point — although early days have been rocky enough with the crashing pound, stumbling stock market, and political chaos. But I would argue the biggest negative of Brexit will be the messiness and uncertainty that ensues. The UK will be forced to rewrite tax rules, as well as draft and implement new legislation. It will have to craft a new relationship with Europe. And the UK will more than likely haggle over referendums in Scotland and Northern Ireland. An OECD report says Brexit could cost the UK 3.3% of its GDP by 2020.

Despite those headaches and risks, “Leavers” across Europe — including those in France, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Finland— have taken up the call. A Citibank note says “… political risks in Europe are high and probably rising, in our view, and ‘referendum risk’ contributes significantly to these risks …” Those risks include outright withdrawal from the EU, scuttling of EU policies, and shying away from EU-centric policies that could bolster local economies. Citi notes that Italy and Hungary will likely both have referendums on matters pertaining to the EU this year.

So what does this have to do with the US, besides the collateral damage of a potentially basket-case Europe — (no small thing that, by the way)? Because while referendums are actually rare in the UK, (the Brexit vote is only the third to cover the whole UK), they are much more common in the US.

Twenty-six states — mostly Western ones — plus Washington, D.C., allow for initiatives and referendums. And over the years, there have been various successes and failures, never mind wackiness. (One of my favorites was the 2006 Arizona Voter Reward Act which would give a single Arizona citizen $1 million in every general election. It was defeated.) But other ballot initiatives of course are more serious, and in some states referendums and such have had real teeth, nowhere more so than in California, where they have been elevated to a powerful form of governance, with high-profile propositions.

For those of you old enough to remember, the watershed moment of the California Proposition movement was 1978 with the passage of Proposition 13, which capped real estate taxes. (Remember Howard Jarvis — the leader of the movement — on the cover of Time Magazine: Tax Revolt!)

The success of that vote ushered in a golden age of referendums for the Golden State, although that may be a mischaracterization. Since then the state has voted on hundreds of referendums on gun control, abortion, marijuana and the death penalty. But mostly the initiatives have tended towards the fiscal: i.e., taxes, budgets and bond issues. To some this has been a shining era of democracy. Others are not so sanguine, saying Prop. 13, for example, helped lead to the gutting of education budgets.

One thing that is undoubtedly true is that this so-called direct democracy model has made governing more difficult. The Economist delved into this in great length in a 2011 special report:

“This citizen legislature has caused chaos. Many initiatives have either limited taxes or mandated spending, making it even harder to balance the budget. Some are so ill-thought-out that they achieve the opposite of their intent: for all its small-government pretensions, Proposition 13 ended up centralizing California’s finances, shifting them from local to state government. Rather than being the curb on elites that they were supposed to be, ballot initiatives have become a tool of special interests, with lobbyists and extremists bankrolling laws that are often bewildering in their complexity and obscure in their ramifications. And they have impoverished the state’s representative government. Who would want to sit in a legislature where 70-90% of the budget has already been allocated?”

The best evidence of the effects of this dysfunction perhaps is that during this period, California experienced a precipitous decline in its credit rating. In 1980, California had an AAA rating. By the early 1990s it had fallen to single A, and it bounced around that level for decades until as recently as 2014, when it was the second-lowest rated state in the nation. (This is a state, of course, with Silicon Valley, Hollywood, oil and gas, timber, minerals and the richest farmland in the nation.) Say what you will about Jerry Brown (twice!), Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson, but it ain’t all the governors’ fault. In fact it may be Jerry Brown’s multiterm experience with government by referendum that has allowed him get a handle on the state’s finances and help boost its credit rating back up to AA (from S&P), its highest rating since 2001. But that’s hardly consolation.

Direct democracy does have a shining example of efficacy, and that is Switzerland, though there certainly are reasons particular to that country — homogeneity being one — that explain why it has worked there.

Otherwise, I would argue that direct democracy is best used sparingly, for local initiatives perhaps. A big drawback of direct democracy is that those who want change — no matter its validity — are much more fired up than those who want to maintain the status quo, and therefore many more of the “Changers” go to the polls, as was perhaps the case in the Brexit vote. Think about the consequences of that.

I know it sounds horribly anachronistic, but checks and balances, branches of government, and slow, messy and deliberate governance actually have their place. It is true that both in the case of Britain’s relationship with the EU and with real estate taxes in California in the 1970s, real change was needed. In cases like this, and probably just in general, politicians need to step up more briskly than they are typically comfortable doing. But putting the onus all back on the people may not be the answer. One thing’s for sure, it certainly has its consequences.

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Marissa Mayer’s Value “Added”: Yahoo Is Now Worth A Negative $13 Billion

“at the beginning of the year Meyer’s severance was worth $158 million. It has since declined to $60 million. During the same time the enterprise value of Yahoo’s core operations, as valued by the market, has declined from negative $1 billion to negative $13 billion. Sounds like a fair trade.”


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Marissa Mayer’s Value “Added”: Yahoo Is Now Worth A Negative $13 Billion:

The last time we looked at the “value” of Yahoo’s core business was nearly a year ago, when the stock was trading at a comfortable $50/share, which however was entirely due to the result of YHOO’s non-core business. This is how Citi estimate the value of Yahoo’s core operations.

Read moreMarissa Mayer’s Value “Added”: Yahoo Is Now Worth A Negative $13 Billion

What Your ‘Startlingly Intimate, Voyeristic’ NSA File Looks Like

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What Your “Startlingly Intimate, Voyeristic” NSA File Looks Like (ZeroHedge, July 6, 2014):

A few days ago, we asked a simple rhetorical question: “Are you targeted by the NSA?

The answer, sadly for those reading this, is very likely yes, as it was revealed that as part of the NSA’s XKeyscore program “a computer network exploitation system, as described in an NSA presentation, devoted to gathering nearly everything a user does on the internet” all it takes for a user to be flagged by America’s superspooks is to go to a website the NSA finds less than “patriotic” and that user becomes a fixture for the NSA’s tracking algos.

So assuming one is being tracked by the NSA – or as it is also known for politically correct reasons “intercepted” – as a “person of interest” or worse, just what kind of data does the NSA collect? The latest report by the WaPo titled “In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are” sheds much needed light on just how extensive the NSA’s data collection effort is.

According to WaPo, the files on intercepted Americans “have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless.”

The Post reviewed roughly 160,000 intercepted e-mail and instant-message conversations, some of them hundreds of pages long, and 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts.

Read moreWhat Your ‘Startlingly Intimate, Voyeristic’ NSA File Looks Like

Yahoo’s Henrique de Castro Got $58 MILLION For 15 Months On Job

Yahoo’s de Castro got $58M for 15 months on job (USA Today, April 17, 2014):

Henrique de Castro’s 15 months as Yahoo’s chief operating officer may have ended on a sour note, but it was sweetened by a severance package valued at nearly $58 million.

All but about $1 million of de Castro’s severance was based in the value of his equity award in Yahoo, which began appreciating after former Google colleague Marissa Mayer joined the company in July 2012. He became Mayer’s first big hire just four months later. But in a letter to employees following de Castro’s Jan. 16 ouster, Mayer said she “made the difficult decision” that he should leave.

His exit package outpaced Mayer’s 2013 compensation, valued at $24.9 million. She gained an additional $21.2 million from vested shares, Yahoo said in a preliminary proxy filing Wednesday.

Read moreYahoo’s Henrique de Castro Got $58 MILLION For 15 Months On Job

GCHQ spied on millions of Yahoo video chats, harvested sexual images of chatters, compared itself to ‘Tom Cruise in Minority Report’

GCHQ spied on millions of Yahoo video chats, harvested sexual images of chatters, compared itself to “Tom Cruise in Minority Report” (Boing Boing, Feb 27, 2104):

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A stunning new Snowden leak reveals that the UK spy agency GCHQ harvested images and text from millions of Yahoo video chats, including chats in which one or both of the participants was British or American. Between 3 and 11 percent of the chats they intercepted were sexual in nature, and revealing images of thousands of people were captured and displayed to spies. The programme, called OPTIC NERVE, focused on people whose usernames were similar to those of suspects, and ran from at least 2008 until at least 2010. The leak reveals that GCHQ intended to expand the programme to Xbox 360 Kinect cameras and “fairly normal webcam traffic.” The programme was part of a facial recognition research effort that GCHQ compared to “Tom Cruise in Minority Report.” While the documents do not detail efforts as widescale as those against Yahoo users, one presentation discusses with interest the potential and capabilities of the Xbox 360’s Kinect camera, saying it generated “fairly normal webcam traffic” and was being evaluated as part of a wider program. Beyond webcams and consoles, GCHQ and the NSA looked at building more detailed and accurate facial recognition tools, such as iris recognition cameras – “think Tom Cruise in Minority Report”, one presentation noted.

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Sexually explicit webcam material proved to be a particular problem for GCHQ, as one document delicately put it: “Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person. Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography.”

The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains “undesirable nudity”. Discussing efforts to make the interface “safer to use”, it noted that current “naïve” pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people’s faces as pornography.

UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users [Spencer Ackerman and James Ball/The Guardian]

14 Facts About The Absolutely Crazy Internet Stock Bubble That Could Crash And Burn In 2014

14 Facts About The Absolutely Crazy Internet Stock Bubble That Could Crash And Burn In 2014 (Economic Collapse, Nov 5, 2013):

Shouldn’t Internet companies actually “make a profit” at some point before being considered worth billions of dollars?  A lot of investors laugh when they look back at the foolishness of the “Dotcom bubble” of the late 1990s, but the tech bubble that is inflating right in front of our eyes today is actually far worse.  For example, what would you say if I told you that a seven-year-old company that has a long history of not being profitable and that actually lost 64 million dollars last quarter is worth more than 13 billion dollars?  You would probably say that I was insane, but the company that I have just described is Twitter and Wall Street is going crazy for it right now.  Please don’t get me wrong – I actually love Twitter.  On my Twitter account I have sent out thousands of “tweets”.  Twitter is a lot of fun, and it has had a huge impact on the entire planet.  But is it worth 13 billion dollars?  Of course not.

When it comes to the Internet, what is hot today will probably not be hot tomorrow.

Read more14 Facts About The Absolutely Crazy Internet Stock Bubble That Could Crash And Burn In 2014

How The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts

How The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts (ZeroHedge, Oct 30, 2013):

It’s quite simple really, and as the WaPo explains, the NSA “has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.”

In a nutshell – 181,280,466 new records in 1 month:

Read moreHow The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts

Edward Snowden’s NOT The Story … The Fate Of The Internet Is

Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is (Guardian, July 28, 2013):

The press has lost the plot over the Snowden revelations. The fact is that the net is finished as a global network and that US firms’ cloud services cannot be trusted

Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world’s mainstream media, for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower.

Read moreEdward Snowden’s NOT The Story … The Fate Of The Internet Is

Washington Post Releases Four New Slides From NSA’s Prism Presentation

Washington Post releases four new slides from NSA’s Prism presentation (Guardian, June 30, 2013):

Newly published top-secret documents detail how NSA interfaces with tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft

The Washington Post has released four previously unpublished slides from the NSA’s PowerPoint presentation on Prism, the top-secret programme that collects data on foreign surveillance targets from the systems of nine participating internet companies.

The newly published top-secret documents, which the newspaper has released with some redactions, give further details of how Prism interfaces with the nine companies, which include such giants as Google, Microsoft and Apple. According to annotations to the slides by the Washington Post, the new material shows how the FBI “deploys government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA”.

Read moreWashington Post Releases Four New Slides From NSA’s Prism Presentation

Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo And AOL Blatantly Lying To Users In Denying NSA Spy Grid Scheme PRISM

Related info:

President Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

UK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

Obama Regime To Shoot The PRISM-Gate Messenger, Launches Criminal Probe Into NSA Leaks

President Obama Defends Unconstitutional Surveillance Programs In San Jose Speech


How Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and AOL are all blatantly lying to their own users in denying NSA spy grid scheme (Natural News, June 8, 2013):

What do Google, AOL, Skype, Facebook, Apple, Hotmail and Yahoo all have in common? They have all been caught turning over private user data to the government’s spy agency, the NSA. All these companies routinely turn over the emails, voice calls, text chats, photos, files and even logins and passwords of their users, including Americans.

“There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal,” journalist Glenn Greenwald recently told Piers Morgan (who knows all about spying and hacking people’s private data). “And that is to destroy privacy and anonymity not just in the United States but around the world.”

Tech companies rush to issue (false) denials

Read moreGoogle, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo And AOL Blatantly Lying To Users In Denying NSA Spy Grid Scheme PRISM

President Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

“You Should Use Both” – How America’s Internet Companies Are Handing Over Your Data To Uncle Sam (ZeroHedge, June 8, 2013):

In the aftermath of the PRISM spying scandal, the first and logical response was an expected one: lie. The president did it, and so did the various companies implicated in the biggest US surveillance scandal ever exposed. To wit:

  • Zuckerberg: “Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers.”
  • Google CEO Larry Page: “We have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers.”
  • Yahoo: “We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.”

One small problem: they are all lying.

The NYT explains just how the explicit handover of private customer data from Corporate Server X to NSA Server Y takes place.

The companies that negotiated with the government include Google, which owns YouTube; Microsoft, which owns Hotmail and Skype; Yahoo; Facebook; AOL; Apple; and Paltalk, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions. The companies were legally required to share the data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. People briefed on the discussions spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are prohibited by law from discussing the content of FISA requests or even acknowledging their existence.

In at least two cases, at Google and Facebook, one of the plans discussed was to build separate, secure portals, like a digital version of the secure physical rooms that have long existed for classified information, in some instances on company servers. Through these online rooms, the government would request data, companies would deposit it and the government would retrieve it, people briefed on the discussions said.

Read morePresident Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

UK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world’s biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme


Documents show GCHQ (above) has had access to the NSA’s Prism programme since at least June 2010. Photograph: David Goddard/Getty Images

UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation (Guardian, June 7, 2013):

The UK’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world’s biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America’s top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.

The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.

Read moreUK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

Spy state shock: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype, AOL, Apple all secretly sharing private user communications with NSA

Spy state shock: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype, AOL, Apple all secretly sharing private user communications with NSA (Natural News, June 7, 2013)

Breaking News: Disclosed Classified Docs Show Vast, Real-Time, Warrantless NSA Online Surveillance

Disclosed classified docs show vast, real-time, warrantless NSA online surveillance (RT, June 6, 2013):

Classified information obtained by the Washington Post and The Guardian has revealed a massive, warrantless online surveillance system in use by a US military intelligence agency, giving access to Americans’ search history, emails, live chats and more.

The 41-page PowerPoint presentation, which has been verified by both papers and published almost concurrently on Thursday evening, outlines details of a previously undisclosed program known as PRISM, which allows the fabled military intelligence agency to harvest massive amounts of data on everything from electronic correspondence to file transfers.

The slides were meant to be declassified in 2036.

According to the documents, the program currently boasts access to some of the largest Internet companies in the world, with Microsoft thought to be the first corporation to sign onto the surveillance arrangement in 2007.

That company’s participation was followed by Yahoo in 2008, Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, Skype and AOL in 2011, and Apple joining in 2012. Meanwhile, cloud storage company Dropbox is described as “coming soon.”

With the participation of those companies, PRISM and thereby Washington intelligence workers have access to the bulk of Americans’ email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype) chats, file transfers, social networking details and more.

Read moreBreaking News: Disclosed Classified Docs Show Vast, Real-Time, Warrantless NSA Online Surveillance

Yahoo Buys Mobile Newsreader App From 17-Year-Old London Kid, Pays Between $30 And $60 Million

Yahoo buys mobile newsreader app Summly from 17-year-old London kid (The Raw Story/AFP, March 25, 2013):

Yahoo! announced plans Monday to buy mobile news reader app Summly from the London teenager who invented it, likely transforming him into one of the world’s youngest self-made multimillionaires.

The company did not disclose the terms of the deal it struck with 17-year-old Nick D’Aloisio, but the London Evening Standard said Yahoo! would pay between £20 million and £40 million ($30 to $60 million).

Read moreYahoo Buys Mobile Newsreader App From 17-Year-Old London Kid, Pays Between $30 And $60 Million

Obama To Meet With Goldman’s Blankfein, Other CEOs Tuesday

Obama to meet with Goldman’s Blankfein, other CEOs Tuesday (Reuters, Feb 5, 2013):

President Barack Obama will meet with chief executives from 12 companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s Lloyd Blankfein and Yahoo Inc’s Marissa Mayer on Tuesday to discuss immigration and deficit reduction.

“The president will continue his engagement with outside leaders on a number of issues – including immigration reform and how it fits into his broader economic agenda, and his efforts to achieve balanced deficit reduction,” a White House official told Reuters on Monday.

Other chief executives include Arne Sorenson of Marriott International Inc, Jeff Smisek of United Continental Holdings Inc, and Klaus Kleinfeld of Alcoa Inc.

Read moreObama To Meet With Goldman’s Blankfein, Other CEOs Tuesday

Third Point’s Daniel Loeb Sold 15% Of Yahoo Stake In Past Two Days

Dan Loeb Sells 15% Of Yahoo Stake In Past Two Days (ZeroHedge, Feb 2, 2013):

While the initial response to last week’s YHOO earnings was afterhours euphoria all of which fizzled in the first hours of trading, sentiment on the firm which has yet to do more than merely promise may sour in the coming days even more following news late on Friday that the company’s formerly staunchest advocate, Third Point’s Dan Loeb sold some 15% of his stake, or 11 million of 73 million shares on Thursday and Friday at a price between $19.68 and $19.70. The remaining stake is now 62 million shares, which means Third Point is now longer the firm’s largest institutional holder with a 6.17% stake, but drops to 4th place behind Capital Group and above Vanguard, who own 67 and 48.9 million shares respectively. The reason given for these opportunistic sales is that they were “motivated by Third Point`s desire to maintain a roughly consistent percentage holding of Yahoo`s outstanding shares as the company pursues its $5 billion buy-back authorization.” Of course considering the $1.5 billion in shares that YHOO has actually bought back represent some 6.5% of the outstanding, one is a little confused how a 15% stake reduction is hedged relative to an actual buyback that is some 60% smaller. Does this mean another 15% stake cut in Q1 when YHOO, supposedly, buys back another $1.5 billion?

Read moreThird Point’s Daniel Loeb Sold 15% Of Yahoo Stake In Past Two Days

Yahoo’s New CEO Marissa Mayer Is Pregnant

See also:

Meet Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s New CEO


The CEO is pregnant: Yahoo’s new chief reignites the can-we-have-it-all debate, with a twist (Washington Post, July 17, 2012):

NEW YORK — “Another piece of good news today,” tweeted the expectant mom, announcing to her online followers that she and her husband were awaiting a baby boy.

But this wasn’t just any excited mom-to-be. This was 37-year-old Marissa Mayer, the newly named CEO of Yahoo — obviously a huge achievement for anyone, but especially for a woman in the male-dominated tech industry. And she was about six months

Meet Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s New CEO

Meet Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s New CEO (ZeroHedge, July 16, 2012):

Former Google employee Marissa Mayer is now Yahoo’s CEO. Good luck to the longs and Dan Loeb. In the meantime, hear (sic) she is. In the meantime, those who like us, were a little confused, this is all you need to know.


YouTube

A link to her overcaffeinated 2006 Stanford lecture where much of this was pulled from.

Read more here

US Judge Orders Hundreds Of Sites ‘De-Indexed’ From Google, Facebook

US judge orders hundreds of sites “de-indexed” from Google, Facebook (Ars Technica, Nov. 29, 2011):

After a series of one-sided hearings, luxury goods maker Chanel has won recent court orders against hundreds of websites trafficking in counterfeit luxury goods. A federal judge in Nevada has agreed that Chanel can seize the domain names in question and transfer them all to US-based registrar GoDaddy. The judge also ordered “all Internet search engines” and “all social media websites”—explicitly naming Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Bing, Yahoo, and Google—to “de-index” the domain names and to remove them from any search results.

The case has been a remarkable one. Concerned about counterfeiting, Chanel has filed a joint suit in Nevada against nearly 700 domain names that appear to have nothing in common. When Chanel finds more names, it simply uses the same case and files new requests for more seizures. (A recent November 14 order went after an additional 228 sites; none had a chance to contest the request until after it was approved and the names had been seized.)

Read moreUS Judge Orders Hundreds Of Sites ‘De-Indexed’ From Google, Facebook