
Verizon ‘might look at’ buying Yahoo - Libertatea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/12/07/verizon-its-early-but-we-might-look-at-buying-yahoo/
======
TheSockStealer
Here is my prediction if Verizon does buy Yahoo... all mobile traffic to Yahoo
and Yahoo owned properties will not count against your monthly data cap. This
sets up yet another streaming service(s) that Verizon can make money with ads
and/or subscriptions with. Since Verizon also provides DSL and Fios, this also
might incentivise Verizon to implement data-caps for those services as well;
with the exception of course for Yahoo content.

T-Moble started the trend for free traffic for certain services, but Verizon
will copy the idea and bend it for their benefit.

~~~
chipgap98
Isn't that against the basic idea of Net Neutrality? Is that even legal?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Yes. No. Does our (U.S.) government actually give two cares? No.

~~~
moonchrome
No - they aren't gimping specific competitors or doing anything to filter data
over public internet - they are offering a new tier of service - just like you
have IPTV as a separate service from public internet.

And why should the government care ? Who is getting hurt here ? Not to mention
there are multiple competing entities in mobile space.

We have something similar arround here with 0.facebook.com where you get free
access to mobile FB version over 3G even on prepaid cards - it's popular with
younger people - why should this be illegal ?

~~~
empath75
There are many, many many content providers and only a relative few ISPs. It
would be pretty easy for ISP's to coordinate or even just act independently
and abuse their oligopoly status and extort money from content providers who
don't have the same leverage they do.

~~~
moonchrome
But that's not what's happening here is it ?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Remains to be seen, right?

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astockwell
Shocking coincidence: "Marissa Mayer's severance package could reach $110
million [upon sale of the company]."[1]

And right when the press is dragging her tenure through the mud.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/07/technology/marissa-mayer-
sev...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/07/technology/marissa-mayer-severance-
package/)

~~~
colmvp
Well the press has been covering her disappointing tenure basically throughout
2015. Everything from a slew of VPs/C-levels leaving (including those she hand
picked) to increased turmoil between managers and employees to product
decisions that didn't result in noticeable ROI.

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JoshTriplett
Seems surprising to me that any company would make a pseudo-non-announcement
like this. What would they have to gain by acknowledging rumors or speculating
like this?

~~~
Someone1234
Would announcing this not increase the value of Yahoo!, which would in turn
increase the cost Verizon would have to pay? Doesn't seem very rational to
comment on the rumours unless they have no intention to buy.

~~~
saosebastiao
Not significantly more than waiting to announce. This is because of SEC rules
that require anyone intending to buy more than 5% of a publicly traded company
to publicly announce with some time period before actually purchasing shares.
These rules were intended to prevent the pervasive private equity pump and
dump schemes of the 90's by making it harder to take a company private.

These rules are also pretty heavily blamed for our current problem of outsized
CEO compensation because CEOs now rarely have to worry about hostile
takeovers.

------
snowwrestler
The wire-management companies are racing to become content companies before
their wire-management business becomes totally commoditized by net neutrality,
content companies (Google), and municipalities (municipal fiber programs are
gaining steam).

Verizon essentially ended their FiOS buildout once Ivan Seidenberg retired, in
favor of putting all their investment into wireless. Why? Because they saw the
writing on the wall: wires and fiber are infrastructure, and infrastructure
always becomes a commodity.

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cpeterso
What would Verizon acquiring Yahoo _!_ mean for Mozilla? Given Verizon's
history of user tracking, that would be an awkward partnership.

~~~
teaneedz
Indeed. I think Yahoo is already a liability to the Mozilla brand. DDG should
just become the default for search. That move would at least create goodwill
for Mozilla.

~~~
cpeterso
I assume DDG does not have $300M in the bank to pay Mozilla for year one, but
perhaps DDG could scale that big with Firefox traffic? I prefer DDG's privacy,
UI, _and_ search results over Google, so Firefox users might conceivably be
less likely to dump DDG than they were Yahoo _!_.

------
mtgx
If the new Engadget is any indication of Verizon's vision for these content
companies, I think we can safely say that Yahoo has not seen the worst of it
yet.

~~~
empath75
Verizon hasn't really touched the day to day operations at AOL very much yet
outside of the ads groups. They've been pretty hands-off so far.

------
yuhong
Reminds me of this fiasco:

[http://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html](http://ryanspahn.com/my-
google-NDA-experience.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LargeCompanies](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LargeCompanies)
(the first comments are not hard to find)

~~~
biot
You keep bringing this up:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10497114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10497114)
\-- do you have some kind of axe to grind here?

~~~
yuhong
Parent was talking about acquisitions. There is a reason for the
"LargeCompanies" HN account name, and the first comments from that account is
not difficult to find.

~~~
biot
You said that already. I'm wondering why the name or comments from a specific
user is so important to you. Certainly many others on HN have discussed
acquisitions (a search by comment or story gives tons of results). The fact
that you repeatedly single out a specific user seems a bit "stalkish".

------
cft
Looks like this is the outcome of the 5 day long bard meeting. They got a
"maybe" from Verizon and promised Mayer $110m so that she tries hard to close.

