Yahoo
| File:Yahoo! logo.svg Logo of Yahoo! | |
| Company type | Public (until 2017) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | January 1994 |
| Founder | Jerry Yang, David Filo |
| Headquarters | United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Yahoo Search, My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, Yahoo Native advertising |
| Owner | Apollo Global Management (90%), Verizon (10%) |
Number of employees | 8,600 (2023) |
| Website | yahoo |
Yahoo (, presented as yahoo! in its logo) is a U.S.-based web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search alongside services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its advertising solution, Yahoo Native. The company is managed by Yahoo! Inc., with ownership split between Apollo Global Management holding 90% and Verizon owning 10%.
Established in January 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo was among the trailblazers during the initial phase of the Internet. Nevertheless, its influence diminished throughout the 2010s as multiple services were terminated and it lost ground to rivals such as Facebook and Google.
Etymology
The term "yahoo" serves as a backronym for either "Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle" or "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." The word "hierarchical" described the multi-layered structure of Yahoo’s database. "Oracle" conveyed a source of knowledge and insight, while "officious" referred to office employees utilizing the database during their work hours. Despite this, founders Filo and Yang primarily selected the name due to its colloquial meaning in Louisiana: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth," inspired by the fictional Yahoo creatures from Gulliver's Travels.
Founding
In January 1994, Stanford University electrical engineering graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo launched a website named "Jerry and David's guide to the World Wide Web." This manually curated web directory, organized in a hierarchical manner, was renamed "Yahoo!" in March 1994 and became recognized as the Yahoo Directory. The domain name "yahoo.com" was officially registered on January 18, 1995.
Yahoo was formally incorporated on March 2, 1995. That same year, it unveiled Yahoo Search, enabling users to explore the Yahoo Directory. Quickly gaining traction, Yahoo emerged as one of the earliest widely used online directories and search engines on the World Wide Web.
Expansion
Throughout the 1990s, Yahoo experienced swift growth and went public in April 1996. Its stock surged by 600% within two years. It developed into a prominent web portal rivaling Excite, Lycos, and AOL. By 1998, Yahoo had become the primary gateway for internet users; its human-curated Yahoo Directory attracted 95 million daily page views—tripling that of Excite. Significant acquisitions included RocketMail (rebranded as Yahoo Mail) in 1997, followed by GeoCities for $3.6 billion and Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion in 1999.
During the dot-com bubble, Yahoo’s share price reached a peak of $118.75 in January 2000 but plummeted to $8.11 by September 2001 after the market collapse. In June 2000, Yahoo outsourced its search function to Google but later developed proprietary search technology by 2004, partly through acquiring Inktomi for $280 million in 2002. In response to Gmail’s introduction, Yahoo provided unlimited email storage starting in 2007 but faced mounting competitive pressures resulting in workforce reductions in 2008.
Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion in February 2008; however, this offer was rejected as undervaluing the company. Even after Microsoft increased its proposal, negotiations ceased by May without an agreement.
Carol Bartz assumed the CEO role in January 2009 but was dismissed in September 2011 after failing to meet objectives; CFO Tim Morse then served as interim CEO. Scott Thompson was appointed CEO in April 2012 but resigned within a month amid executive upheavals and internal difficulties. During this time frame, Yahoo reduced its workforce by approximately 14% (around 2,000 employees) to cut costs by roughly $375 million annually and underwent organizational restructuring under Thompson’s leadership.
Ross Levinsohn briefly acted as interim CEO before Marissa Mayer took over as president and CEO in July 2012. Under Mayer’s leadership, Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in June 2013 with founder David Karp continuing to lead it. The company also purchased Rockmelt in August 2013, retaining its staff while discontinuing its products.
According to comScore data from July 2013, Yahoo surpassed Google in U.S. website visits for the first time since 2011 (excluding mobile and Tumblr traffic). Mayer broadened content offerings by recruiting Katie Couric for an online news initiative and launching an online culinary magazine; nonetheless, internal issues persisted with notable departures such as Henrique de Castro early in 2014.
Yahoo pursued further strategic acquisitions including video advertising firm BrightRoll for $583 million in December 2014 and Cooliris later that month. More recently, acquisitions have included social investing platform Commonstock in August 2023 and AI-powered news aggregator Artifact in April 2024, underscoring ongoing efforts to expand its digital media and technology portfolio.
Decline, security breaches, and sale
By the end of 2015, Marissa Mayer encountered mounting criticism as Yahoo's results deteriorated, leading to her being named the least popular CEO within the technology sector. On February 2, 2016, she announced a workforce reduction affecting 15% of Yahoo's employees.
Verizon Communications declared on July 25, 2016, its plan to acquire Yahoo's primary Internet operations for $4.83 billion, excluding Yahoo's holdings in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. After uncovering major security breaches, Verizon negotiated a $350 million decrease in the purchase price in February 2017 and consented to share responsibility for breach-related liabilities.
The acquisition was finalized on June 13, 2017, coinciding with Mayer’s departure. Post-acquisition, Yahoo, AOL, and HuffPost operated under their respective brands within Verizon's subsidiary Oath Inc., which was later renamed Verizon Media.
Yahoo! Inc.'s remaining assets not included in Verizon's purchase were rebranded as Altaba and subsequently liquidated with a final payout completed by October 2020.
In September 2021, Apollo Global Management–managed investment funds acquired a controlling 90% interest in Yahoo. Later that year, Yahoo ended its operations in mainland China due to an unfavorable business and legal climate; notably, China Yahoo Mail had already ceased service in 2013.
In 2023, amid widespread layoffs across major tech firms such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, Yahoo announced plans to reduce its staff by roughly 20%, impacting about 1,000 of its total 8,600 employees.
Products and services
For a comprehensive overview of all current and former Yahoo offerings, refer to List of Yahoo-owned sites and services.
Data breaches
On September 22, 2016, Yahoo revealed a data breach from late 2014 that compromised at least 500 million user accounts—one of the largest breaches disclosed at that time. The U.S. government subsequently charged four individuals, including two agents from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), for their involvement. On December 14, 2016, Yahoo disclosed an additional breach from 2014 affecting over one billion accounts; attackers exploited stolen internal tools to fabricate HTTP cookies.
On October 3, 2017, Yahoo announced that all three billion user accounts had been compromised in the August 2013 breach. This expanded revelation significantly influenced Yahoo’s valuation and affected negotiations during Verizon’s acquisition process.
DMCA notice to whistleblower
In November 2009, Yahoo attracted criticism from the Electronic Frontier Foundation after issuing a DMCA takedown notice against whistleblower website "Cryptome," which had published information regarding access methods and pricing for private data of Yahoo subscribers.
Censorship of private emails affiliated with Occupy Wall Street protests
Concerns emerged in 2011 about alleged censorship involving emails connected to Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Yahoo issued an apology and attributed the issue to an unintended mistake.
Partners and sponsorships
Yahoo served as one of FIFA’s fifteen official partners during the 2002 FIFA World Cup and 2006 FIFA World Cup, providing co-branded websites in collaboration with the organization.
The company sponsored the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and partnered with NBC Sports Group to distribute content on mobile devices and desktop platforms. In 2013, Yahoo expanded its television video partnerships by collaborating with Condé Nast, WWE, ABC News, and CNBC.
In 2014, under a decade-long agreement, Yahoo became a founding partner of Levi's Stadium, home venue for the San Francisco 49ers. The National Basketball Association joined forces with Yahoo Sports for live game streaming, immersive fan experiences, and integration with the 2018 NBA League Pass. Additionally, November 2019 saw the launch of Yahoo Sportsbook through a partnership with BetMGM.
In November 2020, BuzzFeed acquired HuffPost from Yahoo via a stock transaction that left Yahoo as a minority stakeholder. That same year witnessed a partnership between the NFL and Yahoo introducing the "Watch Together" co-viewing feature within the Yahoo Sports app. Furthermore, the Paley Center for Media collaborated with Verizon Media (Yahoo) to stream exclusive programming on Yahoo’s platforms.
Yahoo took on principal sponsorship for the Pramac Racing team and served as title sponsor for the 2021 ESport/MotoGP Championship season. It also acted as an official partner during September 2021’s New York Fashion Week, sponsoring the Rebecca Minkoff collection through an NFT initiative. In September 2021, Yahoo allied with Shopify, integrating e-commerce merchants across platforms including Yahoo Finance and AOL.