case study on yahoo

Yahoo! The story of strategic mistakes

Jerry Yang  and  David Filo  founded  Yahoo  in  January 1994 . Both of them were Stanford graduates. At first, they developed a website named “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”. It was simply a directory of other websites, organized in a hierarchy as a searchable index of pages.

By April 1994, Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web was renamed  “Yahoo! “. The word  “YAHOO”  is an acronym for  “ Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle “.  

Yahoo witnessed an enormous and rapid growth throughout the ’90s and diversified its business. It was poised to become a giant and a high profile company.

Yahoo provided a search engine and a directory for other websites in a time when people could only log into a website if they knew the website address. Else there was no way to search a website.

The company started making money from the advertising banners which was the first of its kind and started to grow rapidly. Yahoo went public  in April 1996 and its stock price rose by 600 percent within two years and by 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users receiving 95 million page views per day.

Yahoo came up with a series of funny advertisements to popularize its search engine. Check this one out!!

Yahoo’s stock became investor’s darling during the dot.com bubble and once closed at an all-time high of $118.75 in 2000. Just after the dot.com bubble crash the stuck plunged to all time lowest (literrally) at $8.11.

Despite the tremendous performance of Yahoo at its early stages, the company started bleeding in the late 2000s due to multiple factors. Here are the top 6 reasons which resulted in Yahoo’s downfall:

Wrong decisions: Yahoo refused to buy Google for 1 million dollars:

Back in 1998, two individuals, Larry Page and Sergei Brin (Google founders), offered to sell their little startup algorithm to Yahoo for $1 million. The algorithm was supposed to help the Yahoo search engine perform faster and enhance the experience of web search.

Yahoo turned down the offer mainly because it wanted its users to spend more time on Yahoo’s own platform and the other Yahoo content so that it can make more money from the advertising banners on the website.

Again, in 2002 Yahoo rejected an offer to buy Google for $5 billion when the CEO Terry Semel  refused the deal after months of negotiation. Yahoo offered to buy Google at $3 billion but Google was keen on getting $5 billion. So the deal could never happened. (Thank God!!)

Failing to buy Facebook : 

As if saying no to Google was not enough for Yahoo . According to the book called The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, Yahoo initially offered $1 billion to Facebook but later lowered it to $850 million. David writes that Facebook made its mind in 10 minutes to decline the offer. Although, some stories say that if the offer was submitted at $1.1 billion instead of $1 billion, the board of directors would’ve put pressure on Mark Zuckerberg to sell.

Unsuccessful acquisitions :

Even the successful acquisitions could not bring value to the organization. Yahoo acquired two companies in 1999 that are now ranked by Forbes as some of the  worst internet acquisitions  of all-time.

The first was a $4.58 billion deal for Geocities, a site that enabled users to build their own personal websites. While Geocities was a pioneer in this regard, it eventually  was shut down in 2009 after failing to deliver any value to Yahoo shareholders.

The second was the famous $5.7 billion deal for Broadcast.com, an online television site that was founded by Mark Cuban. Perhaps the idea was way ahead of its time and internet connections were too slow in 1999 to run this type of video content off the web..

Yahoo also bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013. Many Tumblr users were unhappy with this acquisition and started an online petition which got 170,000 signatures. Yahoo had to write down more than half of Tumblr by 2016 and ultimately sold it to Verizon.

Hiring wrong CEOs :

As experts say, Yahoo has repeatedly hired the wrong CEOs. None of the CEOs at Yahoo including Marissa Mayer had a “strategic vision” that could match what Eric Schmidt at Google brought. Some even blame Marissa Mayer entirely for the wrong decisions.

Lack of clear vision and a string of poor leaders :

It’s very clear from the strategic mistakes of Yahoo that its leadership lacked a clear vision and the overall purpose of the company. Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft were very clear about their strategic direction.

Yahoo was all over the place. During the research, people were asked to identify Yahoo with what first comes to their mind. Some said Mail , Some Media. Some said search. Clearly, Yahoo failed to create a niche for itself that its competitors successfully did.

Some former employees actually saw the slow demise of the company many years before it actually happened as they could see the bureaucratic culture with too much focus on advertising.

It became very difficult to get both investment and alignment. If you built a new product and the home page didn’t want to feature it, you were hosed. Greg Cohn, a former senior product director at Yahoo to Reuters

Declining Microsoft’s acquisition :

This was the final nail in the coffin. In 2008, Microsoft had shown its interest to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion but Yahoo declined that too (I really don’t know what they were thinking). Since then, the company market value has never reached such numbers. In 2016 Verizon bought Yahoo in a deal worth $4.8 billion.

Yahoo is still not dead though. It is still among the world’s top 10 websites with more than 3.5 billion visits per month . Nevertheless, its place does not augur well for a bright future. Unless Yahoo comes up with any innovation that can change the future of technology, Yahoo! may die gradually in the coming years. It’s a perfect story to learn where the company despite having the right technology and right resources at disposal, failed miserably due to its strategic mistakes.

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Yahoo! case: the fall

In the early days of Internet search engines and email pages, Yahoo! was one of the giants. From the beginning, it was outlined to achieve a great future, but due to bad decisions made throughout its history, the company, today, does not have much weight on the Internet and has been sold for much fewer dollars than in a time had been offered.

In this case study, we are going to talk about the history of Yahoo! and what were the key decisions that led this company to its decline instead of leading it to the success that it seemed it was going to have.

<<< Case study Blockbuster: Why is it necessary to innovate? >>>

What is the history of Yahoo!?

The company was born in 1994 , like most companies in the United States, in a small office or shed of some university, from the idea of university classmates. In this case, it was in a small office at Stanford University that Jerry Yang and David Filo created a directory of Internet pages to facilitate the search for information and websites. We must bear in mind that we are talking about the first half of the 90s when the Internet was not yet so installed in our lives and a few years ago web pages began to emerge.

In 1995, the yahoo.com domain was created , having exceeded 100,000 daily visits in 1994 . In this way, its founders managed to get a venture capital company to invest a million dollars in them and from there venture into novelties that were not yet so exploited in the virtual world. In 1996 Yahoo went public.

From that moment, the company began to grow abysmally . Incorporated Yahoo! mail, games, pagers, and yahoo messenger, among other actions that led it to position itself as one of the companies of the moment. For a long period, Yahoo! was growing, increasing its numbers and employees. It was part of the boom of internet pages that occurred between 1997 and 2001.

<<< Netflix case: disruptive business model >>>

When did their mistakes start?

In 1998 Google emerged , the company that years later would be one of the main nightmares of Yahoo!. In its beginnings, today's giant Google asked for financing from Yahoo! and it refused to give it. We could say that this was one of the first mistakes.

During the first years of development, both companies coexisted, but as Google gained ground, Yahoo! went from being a provider of services on the web to being an advertising portal that was increasingly relegated to what the competition allowed it to access.

In 2007 , one of the most serious mistakes of the company Yahoo! is committed. The owners of Google do not rule out selling their company, and Yahoo! offered 3,000 million dollars, but unfortunately, they could not acquire it because the amount that Page and Brin asked for was 5,000 million. Yahoo! did not make any other offer and lost one of the great opportunities that it would have had to gain much more ground in virtuality.

Another of the mistakes that condemned this company was the missed opportunity to buy Doubleclick , an online advertising company, which was later bought by Google and through which it was able to take a big step in terms of online advertising. What also unseated Yahoo! in this area of development.

Later, Yahoo! also had the opportunity to buy Facebook. In 2006 , the social media company did not have the weight it has today, but its imminent growth could be seen coming. Zuckerberg was asking for something like $1 billion, but Yahoo! decided to offer 850 million and did not agree to buy it.

Microsoft , another technology giant, in 2008, offered the owners of Yahoo! to buy the company for more than 44,000 million dollars, much more money than it was worth at the time. But, again, Yahoo! made the wrong decision and turned down the offer. Even more incredible is that years later, Microsoft asked them for permission to use their search engine (Bing), and Yahoo! allowed it. Let's say it gave them something for free that, years before, they had offered billions of dollars for.

<<< Spotify case: The importance of user experience >>>

Other problems faced by the company

Cybersecurity today is one of the main issues that every technology company must guarantee, but in the case of Yahoo!, this has failed . Numerous times the company has acknowledged having suffered cyberattacks that generated data loss and leaks that involved user accounts. This took away the credibility of its security and, of course, caused many users to migrate to other offers. It has even admitted to creating software at the request of the US intelligence service, to obtain information from users' emails.

In addition to security problems, the company has suffered from organizational problems . In its years of history, it has had 7 different executive directors and almost none of them deviates from having made a significant mistake for the company. One of them even admitted having lied about the information on his CV.

In 2012 Marisa Mayer joined, who had previously worked at Google and came to Yahoo! hoping to revitalize the company but she didn't make it. It was she who in 2016 announced the sale of it to Verizon , for an amount of just over 4,000 million dollars , something that a few years before could have been much more.

<<< Zappos case: the best customer service >>>

As we see, the company Yahoo! has been successful in its first years , due to not having too much competition in the market, but as soon as a company of the same weight arrived, it was completely overshadowed by it and did not have enough maturity to make strategic decisions correctly, which led to its decline. The role of executive directors is very important when making decisions and also organizing the company itself, but this is something that could not be achieved. Their high turnover is a point that did not contribute at all to their growth.

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Science and tech

The surprising downfall of yahoo: a case study in corporate rise and fall.

Once synonymous with the dawn of the internet age, Yahoo was once a digital trailblazer, shaping the landscape of the World Wide Web. However, the journey of Yahoo is not just a narrative of triumphs; it is also a case study in the surprising downfall of a company that stood at the forefront of the tech revolution. In this blog, we explore the rise, zenith, and unexpected decline of Yahoo, dissecting the critical factors that led to its fall from grace.

1. Early Success and Dominance:

Founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo began as a directory of websites. Its simple and intuitive interface quickly gained popularity, and by the late 1990s, Yahoo had become a dominant force in the emerging online world. Acquiring companies like Geocities and launching successful services like Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Finance, the company expanded rapidly, solidifying its position as an internet giant.

2. Missed Opportunities:

Despite its early success, Yahoo missed crucial opportunities that would later contribute to its downfall. One of the most significant lapses was its failure to acquire Google in 2002. Yahoo’s decision to turn down the chance to purchase Google for a mere $3 billion proved to be a monumental mistake, as Google went on to become the unrivaled powerhouse in the search engine market.

3. Leadership Instability:

Yahoo faced a series of leadership changes that introduced a sense of instability within the company. A revolving door of CEOs, each with their own strategies and visions, led to a lack of cohesive direction. The lack of a consistent and effective leadership structure hindered Yahoo’s ability to adapt to the rapidly changing tech landscape.

4. Decline in Advertising Revenue:

Yahoo’s business model heavily relied on advertising revenue, and its inability to keep pace with innovations in online advertising contributed significantly to its downfall. As Google and later Facebook rose to prominence with more effective targeted advertising platforms, Yahoo struggled to compete, leading to a decline in market share and revenue.

5. Cybersecurity Breaches:

In 2013 and 2014, Yahoo suffered two massive cybersecurity breaches that compromised the personal information of over one billion user accounts. The revelations of these breaches not only eroded user trust but also had severe financial implications. The incidents further tarnished Yahoo’s reputation and undermined its credibility in the eyes of both users and potential investors.

6. Failed Acquisitions and Restructuring Attempts:

Yahoo’s attempt to diversify and stay relevant through acquisitions faced numerous challenges. High-profile acquisitions, such as Tumblr and Flickr, failed to yield the expected results. Additionally, attempts at restructuring and rebranding were insufficient to reverse the company’s declining fortunes.

Conclusion:

The downfall of Yahoo is a cautionary tale in the fast-paced, ever-evolving tech industry. From missed opportunities and leadership instability to cybersecurity breaches and a failure to innovate, the company faced a perfect storm of challenges that ultimately led to its surprising decline. Yahoo’s legacy serves as a reminder for companies to stay agile, embrace innovation, and adapt to the evolving demands of the digital era. The rise and fall of Yahoo underscore the volatile nature of the tech landscape and the imperative for companies to remain vigilant, resilient, and attuned to the needs of their users in an ever-changing digital landscape.

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A Tale of Two Brands: Yahoo’s Mistakes vs. Google’s Mastery

February 23, 2016 • 9 min read.

While many theories have been offered to explain Yahoo's downfall in light of Google's ascent, the difference in the companies' brand approaches may be the most illuminating.

The latest upswing for Alphabet, parent company of Google, comes as fellow tech giant Yahoo is mired in increasing challenges to stay afloat. In this opinion piece, author and branding expert Denise Lee Yohn discusses the stark differences in, and impact of, each company’s approach to branding. Yohn is author of the book, What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest . She is also the former vice president/general manager of brand and strategy for Sony Electronics’ brand office and former marketing leader and analyst for Jack in the Box restaurants and Spiegel catalogs.

Less than two weeks after Google’s parent company, Alphabet, became the world’s most valuable public company, Yahoo put its core business up for sale . The contrast between the two companies couldn’t be sharper.

While many theories have been offered to explain Yahoo’s downfall in light of Google’s ascent, I would like to suggest that the difference in the companies’ brand approaches may be the most illuminating. While Google has mastered brand strategy and management, Yahoo has lacked a definitive brand purpose and future-oriented brand vision — and these deficits have led to key brand missteps including introducing an impotent visual identity.

Yahoo’s Confusion vs. Google’s Clarity

Google’s brand mission is well-known and well-established: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin crafted the mission in the company’s early years and, ever since, the organization has stayed committed to it. The statement is displayed front and center on Google’s “About” page and regularly appears in company communication. It has been used by many as a robust descriptor for the company and by employees as the driving force behind practically everything they do.

Yahoo’s brand mission isn’t so clear — actually it isn’t to be found. An official mission statement doesn’t exist on its site, and the statements I did uncover elsewhere were varied and often conflicting. The company lacks both a definitive, compelling description of what it does and why it does it.

According to one researcher who tracked Yahoo’s boilerplate for press releases, the company’s self-description changed 24 times in 24 years.

When Marissa Mayer took the reins at Yahoo, she was hailed as a visionary leader who would rescue the floundering company. But she failed her most important task: explaining — to investors, customers, employees and the world, really — why Yahoo should continue to exist.

To be fair, the company was started with a somewhat problematic mission. Two electrical engineering students at Stanford, David Filo and Jerry Yang, created it as a guide to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. But over time the world outgrew the need for a single place to find useful websites, and one after another, Yahoo’s leaders failed to articulate an alternate enduring reason for the company’s being.

Mayer eventually tried. Late last fall, she commissioned a book to be distributed to Yahoo employees. It contains stories, images, quotes and messages about Yahoo’s past and its future, along with a new statement of the company’s mission, “To be an indispensable guide to digital information, yours and the world’s.” But it’s not a pithy point and it’s probably too late — and given the company’s track record, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it change again.

“While Google has mastered brand strategy and management, Yahoo has lacked a definitive brand purpose and future-oriented brand vision.”

Of course, mission statements, in and of themselves, are not really all that important. But organizations do need a clear and compelling sense of purpose. Leaders of great brands use brand purpose as a compass and engine for their organizations — driving, aligning and guiding everything they do. Without the long-term commitment to a definitive purpose, Yahoo has been rudderless.

Reacting at Yahoo vs. Anticipating at Google

Yahoo has also been vision-less. While many credit Mayer with leading the company’s transition to mobile, the shift was born out of necessity to catch up with the world, not out of opportunity to change it. In fact, Yahoo has been operating in reactive mode for the last decade. Even the new homepage design it recently introduced is merely an incremental evolution of its past designs and its latest attempt to mimic the popular features of other sites.

Yahoo doesn’t have a brand vision that would propel it forward, leapfrogging over existing realities and pushing the limits of what is possible. Mayer once described her vision for the company’s future saying, “As digital content becomes richer, as search and mail become richer, we need to change what the format of that guide is, as we move to mobile, wearables, TVs, cars, and all the other formats in the future. So, we’re focused on search, communications and digital content, all of which we think are incredibly important parts of that role as a guide, and those are the products that we’re investing in and building on.” Her statement merely reflects the company’s reactive stance to changes that it must address — not new growth opportunities it is creating for itself.

Compare this to the way Larry Page described his vision for the future when he introduced Alphabet as the holding company for Google and other entities: “We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.” Alphabet, he went on to explain, is intended to give more support to businesses “far afield” from Google’s main Internet products, including glucose-sensing contact lenses, drone delivery and driverless cars.

“Mission statements, in and of themselves, are not really all that important. But organizations do need a clear and compelling sense of purpose.”

The introduction of Alphabet itself embodies the company’s future orientation and brand vision. Separating the Google brand from the organization’s more far-reaching efforts allows Google to remain aligned and focused on its brand mission and “un-hinders” from efforts that should have their own missions, such as Jigsaw, the new brand for the organization’s innovation lab. Having ditched the former name, Google Ideas, Jigsaw can freely pursue its mission — “to use technology to tackle the toughest geopolitical challenges, from countering violent extremism to thwarting online censorship to mitigating the threats associated with digital attacks” — without diluting or derailing the Google brand.

This kind of brand separation would have been useful for Yahoo to have established before the dire situation it now finds itself in. A separate brand might have protected Yahoo from the doubts involved with its decision to spin off its stake in ecommerce giant Alibaba, as well as the embarrassment when it reversed itself and shelved the plan. And now, the move to put the core business up for sale calls into question the future of the Yahoo brand as a whole and therefore the viability and vitality of any of the units that would remain after such a sale.

Again, it’s too late. Yahoo finds itself behind the brand eight-ball because it hasn’t created a future-oriented brand vision.

Yahoo Style vs. Google Substance

Without a powerful brand purpose to ground the company and a visionary brand ambition to advance it forward, it’s no surprise that Yahoo missed a critical opportunity when it changed its logo back in 2013.

Not only was the new logo design a mere update of the old version, but it also failed to communicate anything of substance. In her announcement of the new logo, Mayer said, “We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo — whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.” She went on to describe the design details of the new logo, explaining, for example why it didn’t incorporate straight lines, but she said nothing about how the change achieved any strategic objective or reflected any substantive change in the brand experience. Kathy Savitt, the company’s chief marketing officer at the time, explained that the new logo was intended to reflect the company’s “reimagined design and new experiences.” But I couldn’t figure out what she was referring to since no new experiences were incorporated into the logo or vice versa.

“When a company knows what it stands for and where it is going, it can focus its people and resources and have clarity in a range of decisions.”

While Yahoo’s identity refresh was simply about design and brand personality, Google’s new logo sent a clear message about the brand’s updated functionality. When Google introduced a sleeker, brighter, animated logo last year, it explained, “Once upon a time, Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices. Today we’re introducing a new logo and identity family that reflects this reality and shows you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens.” Moreover, Yahoo’s change seems self-serving whereas Google’s customer-orientation is clear.

The contrast between Yahoo and Google’s new visual identities illuminates the impact of brand purpose and vision. With them, visual identity changes are imbued with meaning and value; without them, they’re merely cosmetic exercises.

When a company knows what it stands for and where it is going, it can focus its people and resources and have clarity in a range of decisions. Not all of Yahoo’s problems originate from its brand failings, but if Google provides a fair comparison, it’s clear that more attention to Yahoo’s brand purpose and vision could have helped.

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How Yahoo tried (but failed) to go big, and is now going home

I remember the early days of the Internet when the Yahoo directory was my home page. Capturing, categorizing, and presenting the Internet in a clickable tree structure was doable back then, and Yahoo was best of breed. Sadly, that was the last time that Yahoo was truly dominant at anything.

When search engines replaced directories as the dominant information retrieval process, Yahoo outsourced its search tool to Google instead of creating its own, thus jump-starting the rise of a major competitor. Over the years, Yahoo has tried to build up dominance in mail, social media, picture sharing, blogging, broadcasting, e-commerce, messaging, and many other areas… most of which did OK, but none of which cracked the top 2. Time and again, it failed to occupy new market segments, many of which it helped to create.

And, that’s the ultimate sin of an aspirational giant – not being big enough. Yahoo’s end came as a slow, plodding death – a spurned acquisition offer of $45 billion from Microsoft, a succession of ineffective CEOs culminating in the disastrous Marissa Mayer, a slew of splashy and mostly failed acquisitions, and multiple efforts to rebrand.

The announcement that Yahoo’s brand and remaining businesses will be sold to Verizon for $5 billion comes as no surprise. The company had been trying to sell itself for almost a year. It will now join another faded Internet giant, AOL, in Verizon’s stable of misfits hoping to stave off the massive digital disruption currently playing out in the telecommunications industry.

Yahoo’s $40 billion stake in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan – its main remaining assets – will not go with the sale to Verizon. Now unencumbered by Yahoo’s operating businesses, these assets will presumably be sold off in a more tax-efficient manner.

Google has its search engine, Facebook has its social network, Amazon has its e-commerce site, but Yahoo tried to become a giant without the backing of a solid core business. If your strategy is to be a giant, then you’d better be big. In the end, Yahoo was not big enough or dominant enough in the markets it chose to focus on.

Michael Wade is the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation, and Professor of Innovation and Strategic Information Management at IMD. His interests lie at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and digital transformation.

He is Director of the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation and co-Director of IMD’s new Leading Digital Business Transformation program (LDBT) designed for business leaders and senior managers from all business areas who wish to develop a strategic roadmap for digital business transformation in their organizations.

He is also co-director of the Orchestrating Winning Performance Program (OWP) .

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The Decline of Yahoo in Its Own Words

• Walter Frick

It was 2012 before they really started talking about mobile, according to their earnings calls.

On Google’s earnings call for the first quarter of 2006 – more than a year before the iPhone was released and more than two years before the release of the first Android-operated smartphone – CEO Eric Schmidt went out of his way to talk about mobile.

• Walter Frick is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review , where he was formerly a senior editor and deputy editor of HBR.org. He is the founder of Nonrival , a newsletter where readers make crowdsourced predictions about economics and business. He has been an executive editor at Quartz as well as a Knight Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism and an Assembly Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He has also written for The Atlantic , MIT Technology Review , The Boston Globe , and the BBC, among other publications.

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Case Study: Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc.  is a leading provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!’s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages. Traffic on the Yahoo! global network of properties increased to an average of 2.4 billion page views per day as of March 2004.

By January 2005, more than 345 million unique users worldwide used the Yahoo! global network of properties. [Source: Yahoo!, Inc., August 2005]

Things to read:

• About Yahoo! ;
• The History of Yahoo!: How it All Started ;
• Read the lastest  Yahoo Annual Report ;
• Frequently Asked Questions ;
• myYahoo  (personalized portal service);
• Wikipedia:  Yahoo!

Questions to consider:

• What are the benefits and limitations of the advertising business model?
• How can Yahoo’s rapid success in creating a major global brand name be explained?
• How does Yahoo differ from traditional businesses in the world of mass communication, such as print publication or radio and television broadcasting?
• In what ways do Yahoo and Google differ in their business models?

Intellectual Property

Selected trademark applications and registrations:

• DO YOU YAHOO!? ®;
• YAHOOLIGANS! ®;
• Search real-time for  U.S. trademarks .

Selected patents

• 6,381,594  — System and method for personalized information filtering and alert generation;
• 6,359,633  — Apparatus and method for abstracting markup language documents;
• 6,343,302  — Remote web site authoring system and method;
• 6,216,157  — Method and apparatus for a client-server system with heterogeneous clients;
• 6,205,469  — Method for client-server communications through a minimal interface;
• 5,991,756  — Information retrieval from hierarchical compound documents;
• 5,983,227  — Dynamic page generator;
• Search real-time for new U.S. patents granted to  Yahoo! .

Here’s an In depth Analysis On the Business Model Of Yahoo

By Aditya Shastri

Looking for the business model of yahoo? Here’s an in-depth analysis of it.

Yahoo is one of the most well-known brands in the media and entertainment industries. It is a well-known online brand that bills itself as a democratic and unbiased search engine. Although Yahoo has fallen far behind Google and Facebook, it was once a contender for internet dominance.

In this case study, we will learn about Yahoo’s product, placement, promotion, and pricing strategy, as well as its SWOT Analysis.

Let us begin with a brief introduction to Yahoo before moving on to the main segment.

About Yahoo

In January 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo, which is regarded as the first web search engine that assisted users in discovering everything on the Internet. It is a multinational technology corporation headquartered in California.

The web search engine offers digital content products, news, media, sports, and advertisements to its users all over the world. Despite fierce competition from Google, the company still attracts more than half a billion users each month in over 30 languages. It ranks third in terms of market share in the United States, trailing only Google.

As of October 2005, Yahoo was serving approximately 3.4 billion internet web page views worldwide. However, according to Alexa Internet and SimilarWeb, Yahoo domain websites continue to be among the most popular, ranking 12th in global engagement.

We now have a clear understanding of what Yahoo is. Let’s see the product offerings of Yahoo in the coming section. 

Yahoo Product Strategy

Yahoo offers a variety of products and services. These are easily accessible through their web portal. On the go, the portal provides news, sports, finance, and weather information. Yahoo Search, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Maps, and Yahoo Messenger are also available to these users. The following are some of the products and services that are part of its marketing mix product strategy:

• Online messaging services, such as Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger
• Social networking services and products, such as Yahoo Buzz, My Web, Yahoo Personals, and Delicious
• Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Music, Yahoo Movies, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Games, and Yahoo Answers are all content provider offerings.
• Instant messaging, blogging, email, information services, notifications, and OneSearch are all available on Yahoo Mobile.
• Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Autos, Yahoo Travel, and Yahoo Real Estate are all shopping services.
• Tumblr, a microblogging and social networking website, and Flickr, a picture and video hosting website.
• Yahoo Next, Yahoo BOSS, Yahoo Meme, Y! Connect, Yahoo Accessibility, Yahoo Axis, Yahoo SearchMonkey, and Geo Planet are all examples of Yahoo products.

These are the products offered by Yahoo. Let’s get to know about the pricing strategy of Yahoo. 

Pricing Strategy of Yahoo

Yahoo’s pricing strategy varies depending on the type of product or service it offers. Yahoo BOSS is a service that allows developers to create Yahoo-powered applications. This is a per-query pricing scheme, with rates ranging from $0.4 to $0.75 for 1000 BOSS queries. The cost is determined by the type of query. 

Yahoo Merchant Solution features a reasonable monthly rate of $ 39.95 for their e-commerce solutions beginning package, followed by a 1.5 percent gross sales additional monthly fee. Yahoo Web Hosting charges $3.75 per month for the basic plan, $5.99 per month for the advanced plan, and $8.99 per month for the premium plan.

Yahoo DomainKeys sells domain names for around $10 for five years, after which there is a $35 annual renewal fee.

 This elucidates Yahoo’s pricing strategy. Let’s take a look at the distribution strategy of Yahoo. 

Place Strategy of Yahoo

Users can access all of Yahoo’s products and services through the Yahoo Affiliate program. This aids online marketers in promoting its Hosting Services, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Games, and Yahoo Merchant Solutions, as well as helping them create a high level of visibility for their brand, attracting more customers. 

Yahoo earns commissions when users sign up for their business services, such as Yahoo Merchant Solutions and Yahoo Web Hosting Plan, through this program.

This concludes the placing strategy of Yahoo. Now let’s tear it down and understand the promotion strategy of Yahoo. 

Promotion Strategy of Yahoo  

Yahoo uses a variety of strategies to attract businesses to its brand. Because it is a website, its promotional efforts are one-of-a-kind in the marketing mix. Yahoo has created several mobile apps that allow customers to access their email, news, sports, and other information by simply downloading the Yahoo app to their mobile device. 

Every month, Yahoo Studios broadcasts live videos and advertisements across the internet. Yahoo creates a platform for native advertising, allowing businesses to reach millions of people. They also provide custom branded content for viewers to watch live streaming of sports, markets, or news from the comfort of their own homes. Tumblr and Polyvore, both powered by Yahoo, are two platforms for their young to connect.

With this, the business model of Yahoo gets complete. Let’s finish it with a conclusion. 

Yahoo has been one of the top online corporations since its inception. Even after Google’s ascension, Yahoo has maintained its place by providing great news to its readers daily. Yahoo will be one of the most popular Web portals in the world as a result of the dedication and hard work of its staff.

I hope you found this case study interesting. Do you want more? Please visit the IIDE website for more information. You can also take Karan Shah’s Free Digital Marketing Masterclass if you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing. 

Share your thoughts on this case study in the comments below. Thank you for reading, and if you liked it, please tell your friends about it.

Author's Note: My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India . Practical assignments, case studies & simulations helped the students from this course present this analysis. Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience. If you found this case study helpful, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Inside the Russian hack of Yahoo: How they did it

A single click was all it took to launch one of the biggest data breaches ever.

One mistaken click. That’s all it took for hackers aligned with the Russian state security service to gain access to Yahoo’s network and potentially the email messages and private information of as many as 500 million people.

Of course, that 2014 breach, was soon dwarfed by revelations of a second breach that took place a year earlier and which at the time was said to have compromised 1 billion Yahoo user accounts . On Tuesday, Yahoo said that, in fact, all 3 billion user accounts were affected.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the 2014 intrusion for two years, but it was only in late 2016 that the full scale of the hack became apparent. In March 2017, the FBI indicted four people for the attack, two of whom are Russian spies.

Here’s how the FBI says they did it:

The hack began with a spear-phishing email sent in early 2014 to a Yahoo company employee. It’s unclear how many employees were targeted and how many emails were sent, but it only takes one person to click on a link, and it happened.

Once Aleksey Belan, a Latvian hacker hired by the Russian agents, started poking around the network, he looked for two prizes: Yahoo’s user database and the Account Management Tool, which is used to edit the database. He soon found them.

So he wouldn’t lose access, he installed a backdoor on a Yahoo server that would allow him access, and in December he stole a backup copy of Yahoo’s user database and transferred it to his own computer.

The database contained names, phone numbers, password challenge questions and answers and, crucially, password recovery emails and a cryptographic value unique to each account.

It’s those last two items that enabled Belan and fellow commercial hacker Karim Baratov to target and access the accounts of certain users requested by the Russian agents, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin.

A U.S. District Court endictment for four people accused of hacking Yahoo is seen against FBI wanted posters.

The account management tool didn’t allow for simple text searches of user names, so instead the hackers turned to recovery email addresses. Sometimes they were able to identify targets based on their recovery email address, and sometimes the email domain tipped them off that the account holder worked at a company or organization of interest.

Once the accounts had been identified, the hackers were able to use stolen cryptographic values called “nonces” to generate access cookies through a script that had been installed on a Yahoo server. Those cookies, which were generated many times throughout 2015 and 2016, gave the hackers free access to a user email account without the need for a password.

Throughout the process, Belan and his colleague were clinical in their approach. Of the roughly 500 million accounts they potentially had access to, they only generated cookies for about 6,500 accounts.

The hacked users included an assistant to the deputy chairman of Russia, an officer in Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and a trainer working in Russia’s Ministry of Sports. Others belonged to Russian journalists, officials of states bordering Russia, U.S. government workers, an employee of a Swiss Bitcoin wallet company and a U.S. airline worker.

So clinical was the attack that when Yahoo first approached the FBI in 2014, it went with worries that 26 accounts had been targeted by hackers. It wasn’t until late August 2016 that the full scale of the breach began to become apparent and the FBI investigation significantly stepped up.

In December 2016, Yahoo went public with details of the breach and advised hundreds of millions of users to change their passwords.

More on the Yahoo breach:

• Yahoo execs botched its response to 2014 breach, investigation finds
• Here’s what you should know, and do, about the Yahoo breach
• Yahoo shows that breach impacts can go far beyond remediation expenses
• The massive Yahoo hack ranks as the world’s biggest — so far

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Martyn Williams produces technology news and product reviews in text and video for PC World, Macworld, and TechHive from his home outside Washington D.C.. He previously worked for IDG News Service as a correspondent in San Francisco and Tokyo and has reported on technology news from across Asia and Europe.

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A case study of Yahoo

Significantly, the research question was why did Microsoft offered to acquire Yahoo for $40.8 billion? And why are other companies envious of Yahoo fragmentation and continuous innovation through the use of TSHs, SWOT, PESTEL and other business modular changes? How were TSHs, SWOT, and PESTEL ensconced in Yahoo paradigmatical deft leadership style? Read more here at http://www.jofdt.com/product/a-case-study-of-yahoo/

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Yahoo! in China (A)

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Yelp just slapped Google with a lawsuit. Here’s why.

"Google is a monopolist." Those were the words written by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta earlier this month in his landmark ruling against the search giant in the antitrust case brought to the court by the U.S. Justice Department.

While that case against Google pertained to its $20 billion deal with Apple regarding Google Search maintaining its default dominance on the iPhone, it seems that the DOJ lawsuit may have just opened the floodgates.

On Wednesday, local business review platform Yelp filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google regarding the company's dominance over local search and local search advertising.

Yelp takes on Google's local search dominance

Yelp's case against Google is all about the search giant giving priority to its own local search product.

"Our case is about Google, the largest information gatekeeper in existence, putting its heavy thumb on the scale to stifle competition and keep consumers within its own walled garden," writes Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman in a public post addressing the lawsuit. "Google has illegally abused its monopoly in general search to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets — engaging in anticompetitive conduct that has degraded the quality of search results and demoted rivals to grow its market power."

Type in any local business whether it be a nearby restaurant or plumbing service and Google local search information is unavoidable. Google reviews and star ratings for an establishment, left via Google Maps, as well as contact information, business hours, and more are all readily available right the on Google Search results page. On the web, this information is usually located on the sidebar and doesn't distract from Google's competitors on the search page as much. However, perform a local search on a mobile device and Google's local search information is oftentimes the first – and only – thing you see on the page until you scroll down.

SEE ALSO: Google Gemini now lets you create AI-generated images of people — but there's a catch

"When a consumer conducts a Google search with local intent, Google manipulates its results to promote its own local search offerings above those of its rivals, regardless of the comparative poorer quality of its own properties, exempting itself from the qualitative ranking system it uses for other sites," Stoppelman says.

According to the Yelp CEO, Google's anticompetitive practices have impacted the company so much that Yelp has noticed that an increase in the number of Google searches for a term has often resulted in zero additional clicks to links recommended on the page. The reason, according to Yelp, is that Google's local search product just provides all the information on the search page which gives users no reason to click through to a competitor.

Yelp's public push explaining its lawsuit against Google cites numerous cases against Google over the years as well as fines the company has received for anticompetitive practices. It also includes crucial quotes from Google executives over the years such as one from Google's former VP of search products Marissa Mayer where she claims Google would put their own products first in Google search results because it "seems only fair." Mayer's statement also acknowledges that search ranking results would only be ranked by popularity after Google's own product link at the top of the page.

Yelp, a regular Google critic, clearly sees an opening after the recent ruling from Judge Mehta. Yelp’s General Counsel Aaron Schur said so himself in a statement provided to Mashable.

"Judge Amit Mehta’s recent ruling in the government’s antitrust case against Google, finding Google illegally maintained its monopoly in general search, is a watershed moment in antitrust law, and provides a strong foundation for Yelp’s case against Google," Schur said. "In addition to injunctive relief, Yelp seeks a remedy that ensures Google can no longer self-preference in local search."

"The harms caused by Google’s self-preferencing are not unique to Yelp, and we look forward to telling our story in court," he continued.

Mashable has reached out to Google for comment and will update if we hear back.

Naresh Sekar

Case Study— Yahoo

Product lifecycle.

Yahoo, once a dominant force in the internet industry, provides a notable example of the challenges and complexities associated with managing the product lifecycle of a major online service. Yahoo’s journey from being a pioneer in web services to struggling to maintain relevance in the face of fierce competition highlights the importance of continuous innovation, strategic decision-making, and market adaptation. This case study explores the key phases, significant events, and strategies that shaped the lifecycle of Yahoo.

Timeline of Events

Development and Launch

1994 : Jerry Yang and David Filo created “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” which was later renamed Yahoo. Yahoo was incorporated in March 1995.

1996 : Yahoo went public, raising $33.8 million in its IPO and becoming one of the first major internet companies.

Growth and Market Expansion

1997 : Yahoo became the most popular website on the internet, expanding its services to include email, news, and search.

2000 : Yahoo reached its peak during the dot-com bubble, with a market capitalization exceeding $100 billion. Yahoo acquired Geocities and Broadcast.com to expand its web presence.

2001 : The burst of the dot-com bubble led to a significant drop in Yahoo’s stock price and market valuation.

Maturity and Continued Success

2003 : Yahoo shifted focus to becoming a media company, acquiring Overture (a search advertising company) and launching Yahoo Search Marketing.

2005 : Yahoo acquired Flickr, a popular photo-sharing site, and delved into social media and user-generated content.

2006 : Yahoo Mail was revamped, becoming one of the most widely used email services.

Decline and Challenges

2008 : Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion, which Yahoo rejected. The decision was controversial and led to internal strife.

2010 : Yahoo struggled with management changes, strategic missteps, and increasing competition from Google and Facebook.

2012 : Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO, focusing on revamping Yahoo’s core services and mobile strategy.

2016 : Yahoo announced its sale to Verizon for $4.48 billion, marking the end of its independence as a major internet company.

2017 : Yahoo was merged with AOL to form a new entity, Oath Inc., under Verizon’s ownership.

Product Lifecycle Stages

Introduction Stage

Characteristics : Yahoo’s introduction stage was marked by its rapid rise as a leading web directory and search engine.

Market Entry : Yahoo began as a directory of websites, quickly expanding its services to include email, news, and other web-based applications.

Marketing Focus : Early marketing efforts focused on Yahoo’s user-friendly interface and comprehensive directory of internet resources.

Challenges : Building a scalable platform and establishing a strong user base in the rapidly growing internet market.

Growth Stage

Characteristics : Rapid expansion and diversification of services characterized Yahoo’s growth stage.

Market Expansion : Yahoo expanded its offerings to include search, email, news, finance, and other web services, attracting millions of users worldwide.

Marketing Focus : Aggressive marketing campaigns and strategic acquisitions helped Yahoo maintain its position as the leading internet portal.

Challenges : Managing rapid growth, integrating new services and acquisitions, and maintaining a competitive edge in the evolving internet landscape.

Maturity Stage

Characteristics : The maturity stage saw Yahoo achieving peak market penetration and facing growing competition from emerging internet giants.

Product Diversification : Yahoo continued to diversify its offerings, including acquiring Flickr, launching Yahoo Answers, and expanding into social media and advertising.

Marketing Focus : Emphasis on maintaining user engagement, enhancing core services, and expanding advertising revenue.

Challenges : Intense competition from Google in search and advertising, and Facebook in social media, leading to a decline in user base and market share.

Decline Stage

Characteristics : The decline stage was marked by a significant loss of market share and relevance in the face of stronger competitors.

Market Dynamics : Rapid decline due to Google’s dominance in search and advertising, and Facebook’s rise in social media, leading to decreasing user engagement and revenue.

Marketing Focus : Attempts to revamp services and focus on mobile strategy under CEO Marissa Mayer, but with limited success.

Challenges : Adapting to a rapidly changing market, addressing internal management issues, and finding a sustainable business model in the face of declining relevance.

Strategies and Implications for Yahoo’s Decline

Failure to Innovate

One of the critical factors in Yahoo’s decline was its failure to innovate and adapt to changing market dynamics. While Google continuously improved its search algorithms and advertising platform, Yahoo struggled to keep up with technological advancements.

Strategic Missteps

Yahoo made several strategic missteps, including rejecting Microsoft’s acquisition offer, overpaying for acquisitions like Broadcast.com, and lacking a clear vision for its future. These decisions eroded investor confidence and hindered long-term growth.

Strong Competition

Google’s rise as the dominant search engine and advertising platform, coupled with Facebook’s growth in social media, significantly impacted Yahoo’s market position. These competitors offered better user experiences, superior technologies, and more effective monetization strategies.

Attempts to Rebrand and Revitalize

Under Marissa Mayer’s leadership, Yahoo made several attempts to rebrand and revitalize its services, including investing in mobile applications, enhancing user interfaces, and acquiring new startups. However, these efforts were not enough to regain significant market share.

The Yahoo case study highlights the critical importance of continuous innovation, strategic agility, and effective management in managing a product lifecycle. From its early success as a pioneering web directory to its decline in the face of stronger competitors, Yahoo’s journey offers valuable lessons for businesses in the tech industry. Understanding the factors that led to Yahoo’s decline underscores the need for relentless focus on technological advancement, market awareness, and strategic decision-making. While Yahoo’s attempts to rebrand and revitalize were commendable, they ultimately fell short due to internal challenges and the superior strategies of its competitors.

If you’re eager to expand your knowledge and enjoy a case-study-based approach, you might find the book series “ Management In Action ” interesting. Since I firmly believe that the pursuit of knowledge should never be limited by financial constraints, you can access all my content for free on my Substack account .

Ready for more?

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FBI still slow to investigate child sexual abuse after Larry Nassar case: DOJ watchdog

WASHINGTON − Even after the notorious Larry Nassar case , a Justice Department watchdog said Thursday that the FBI continued to have failures in investigating reports of child sexual abuse. Inspector General Michael Horowitz flagged 42 cases in the past three years that appeared to “require immediate attention" but didn't receive it, including one in which a reported victim continued to be abused for 15 months after the initial report.

The report suggested the FBI continued to have problems with a lack of investigation, not reporting cases to local law enforcement as required and not following the agency’s own policies.

The problems stemmed at least in part by a lack of staffing. FBI agents investigating child sexual abuse were each handling scores of cases. Multiple FBI officials told auditors they lacked resources to investigate the cases, and one agent assigned about 60 cases said that burden led to cases “falling through the cracks,” the report said.

“Today’s report found that since the time it received allegations against Nassar, the FBI has implemented training, policy updates and system changes to improve its handling of allegations of crimes against children,” Horowitz said in a letter accompanying the report. “However, we identified numerous instances where the FBI didn’t appropriately respond to such allegations.”

The FBI contends it has adopted a new approach.

"We've made mistakes, and we recognize that, and we're making efforts to ensure that those don't happen," a senior FBI official said on a call with media shortly before the report's public release.

The FBI agreed with all 11 recommendations from Horowitz and fixed two of the problems as the report was drafted. The FBI argued that most of the criticism covered paperwork problems.

“Most of the incidents flagged reflected the failure to properly document completed investigated steps or involved investigations where no additional action was necessary,” Michael Nordwall, FBI executive assistant director, wrote in reply to the report. “In the handful of cases where we identified a need for additional investigative steps or reporting to state, local, tribal, or territorial law enforcement, we worked to ensure all necessary steps were completed.”

The report comes three years after Horowitz criticized the FBI for failing to respond urgently to allegations of sexual abuse against athletes by Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics physician. Nassar was convicted of abusing more than 100 athletes, including Olympic champions Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman.

Nassar's reign of sexual abuse wasn't stopped until the allegations were publicly exposed in September 2016  after an investigation by IndyStar , part of the USA TODAY Network. Nassar is serving a more than 100-year sentence.

Here is what the report found:

What were flaws in FBI investigations of child sexual abuse?

The FBI opened 3,925 cases alleging child sexual abuse from Oct. 1, 2021, through Feb. 26, 2023. Horowitz reviewed 327 incidents and found 42 flagged for the FBI “because we believed they may require immediate attention.” The cases included:

In December 2021, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received an allegation that a registered sex offender was engaging in sex with a minor that involved travel across state lines. After auditors reviewed the file, the FBI interviewed the victim and offered services a year after receiving the allegation. Auditors learned the suspect victimized another minor for 15 months after the initial allegation.

In February 2022, a social worker reported allegations to the FBI that a suspect was engaging in sex with a minor involving travel across state lines. The FBI investigated but the case wasn’t referred to local law enforcement and the case was later marked inactive. In response to questions from auditors, the FBI presented the case to the U.S. attorney’s office, which declined to prosecute. The FBI agent assigned the case had 44 pending cases.

In September 2022, the FBI received an anonymous tip alleging a suspect with multiple previous sex offense convictions was trafficking of minors. Auditors didn’t find any referral to local law enforcement. The FBI said the initial investigating agent was transferred and administrative oversight of the case was delayed. The new case agent was assigned a year after the initial complaint and three months after auditors flagged it for the FBI.

In response to the 42 flagged incidents, the FBI said it would add documentation to the files in 17 cases and take further action in 18 cases. The FBI determined no further action was needed in five cases, and two were flagged solely for FBI awareness.

Part of the problem was blamed on staffing. Auditors found 15 FBI field offices proposed to reorganize their staffing levels to deal with crimes against children from 2020 to 2022, but only one agent in one office was approved for transfer, according to the report. FBI headquarters told the offices to use available resources, including referring cases to state and local partners and other investigators.

Despite an increasing load of cases over the past three years, the number of agents assigned to crimes against children dropped from 432 in 2022 to 429 last year, according to the report.

Lawmakers responded quickly and angrily to the report and threatened to hold hearings in September. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI, called the report "damning" and said Nassar's abuse remains "a stain on the bureau." Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the report "stunning."

“I am disgusted and appalled by the FBI’s ongoing, systematic mishandling of sexual assault and abuse cases against children,” Blumenthal said. “Incredibly and outrageously, three years after the Nassar report we are again asking how many children have suffered unspeakable pain and harm because the FBI has failed to do its job.”

What did the inspector recommend to the FBI?

Horowitz’s 11 recommendations were topped by one that remained unresolved since the Nassar report: The FBI needs to develop and implement a method to monitor FBI compliance with mandatory reporting of suspect child sexual abuse and take remedial action.

Other recommendations include:

Ensure all incidents involving an imminent or ongoing threat to a child are handled within 24 hours as required.

Notify victims about services available to them.

Enhance monitoring of leads to ensure they are covered in a timely and appropriate manner.

“As a whole, the results of our audit demonstrate that the FBI needs to improve compliance with policies and laws in multiple areas, including mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse, providing victim services, transferring incidents between field offices, self-approvals, and responding to allegations of active or ongoing child sexual abuse,” the report said.

The FBI agreed with the recommendations and accomplished two while the report was prepared. One was to update procedures for staffers handling allegations to describe when incidents are time-sensitive. The other was to update policies for field offices to document and respond to new allegations of sexual exploitation of a child.

"The FBI continues to improve, we continue to make changes to processes, policies, and training to ensure that mistakes are not made," a senior FBI official said.

What did Horowitz find with the Nassar investigation?

In the Nassar report in July 2021, Horowitz found the FBI field office in Indianapolis failed to respond urgently to allegations of sexual abuse and made fundamental mistakes when it did respond. The Indianapolis office also failed to notify other authorities – the FBI field office in Lansing, Michigan, where Nassar worked at Michigan State University, or state and local officials – to combat the threat.

Despite the Indianapolis office received the first complaint in July 2015, the Lansing office learned about the allegations after the MSU Police Department searched his home in September 2016 and discovered child pornography. During the period, Nassar was treating gymnasts at MSU, a Michigan high school and at a gym club.

The Justice Department agreed in April to pay $138.7 million to a group of survivors over the FBI's mishandling of the sex abuse allegations against Nassar. MSU agreed to distribute $500 million to survivors and USA Gymnastics reached a separate settlement with Nassar's victims of $380 million.

The report said the FBI failed to :

Properly handle evidence such as a thumb drive from USA Gymnastics President Stephen Penny.

Transfer the investigation to the Lansing office, the most likely venue for potential federal crimes.

Document until February 2017 interview conducted in September 2015 of a gymnast’s allegations of sexual assault by Nassar.

Maroney said at a Senate hearing after the report was released that she told her entire story of abuse to the FBI in 2015, but when the agency eventually documented the report 17 months later, "they made entirely false claims about what I said."

Jay Abbott, the FBI special agent in charge of the Indianapolis office, made false statements about the gymnast’s interview to minimize errors made by his office, according to Horowitz.

“Abbott violated FBI policy and exercised extremely poor judgment” when he communicated with Penny about a potential job with the U.S. Olympic Committee, the inspector general’s report said.

Horowitz made four recommendations to the FBI, which the agency accepted. The recommendations were to:

Reassess policies to more precisely describe when FBI staffers are required to contact and coordinate state and local law enforcement about allegations of crimes against children.

Clarify policies about when a supervisor conducts investigative activity.

Develop a policy for when phone interviews of alleged victims of child abuse are appropriate.

Train employees about the policies.

Contributing: Aysha Bagchi

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Watchdog criticizes FBI investigation of child sex abuse after Nassar

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品薄が続いた「こまごまファイル」。入れやすい・出しやすい・探しやすい！万能ファイルの使い道は無限大【冷蔵庫のふりかけ】【意外と面倒なシールの保管】【折り紙収納】

8/31(土) 10:02 配信

とてもシンプル。でも「これが欲しかった！」

SNSで人気に火が付いたサクラクレパスの「こまごまファイル」

この商品をご存知でしょうか？SNSでユーザーの使い方が多くの人に共感されて、発売後1ヶ月半で年間目標販売数をクリアしたサクラクレパスの「こまごまファイル」です。子ども向けのシリーズで出されましたが、「大人向けにもとても便利に使える」商品で一時、品切れ状態になるほどでした。 【画像10枚】便利すぎる！「こまごまファイル」を実際に使ってみた ■外側は？ 全体が白一色のファイルです。高さは21cmとA5サイズのノートと同じで、横幅はそれより少し小さく17.5cm。背表紙の幅は3.5cmと意外とコンパクト。裏表紙からベルトが出ていて内側の先端には面ファスナーがついています。同じく表紙にも面ファスナーがつけられていて、閉じてコンパクトに使うことができます。また、持ち運びがしやすいように上部にはハンドルがつけられています。 ■内側は？ ベルトを外すと6つの部屋に分かれているじゃばらのポケットが扇型に開きます。これによってファイル自体が自立します。ポケットの高さは約10.6cm。小さめのものを入れても取り出しやすく、高さがあるものでもしっかりと支えてくれる絶妙な高さです。最大に開くと幅は20cmほどになります。

水谷妙子さん監修の「おかたづけシリーズ」の1品です

実はこの商品、HugKumの記事でもお馴染みの整理収納アドバイザーの水谷妙子さんが監修しています。子どもの“お絵かきや工作を楽しみたい”気持ちと、親の“自分で片づけてほしい”気持ちに寄り添って誕生した【おかたづけシリーズ】から発売された商品なのです。

CASE STUDY：シールを使う時

お子さんも楽しむ、大人も手帳デコに使う世代を超えて楽しめるのが「シール」ではないでしょうか？そのシールを使うときにどう便利なのかを考えてみましょう。 ■割り切っていた「使いづらさ」 シールを収納するためのアイテムは今までも市販されていました。例えば筆者宅にあるシール用のファイルはシールが気持ちよく入るサイズのポケットになっている縦長のもので、ポケットを1枚ずつめくって自分の使いたいシールを探し、ポケットに手を入れて取り出すというものでした。 今まではそれが普通だったので、「取り出すのが面倒」「たくさんは入らない」というのは仕方がないと割り切っていた部分がありました。 ■こまごまファイルでパッと解決！ ですが、こまごまファイルはポケットに幅があるため、1カ所にたくさんのシールを入れられます。しかも、ポケットの高さがそこまで高くないので、小さいサイズのシールでもひょいと取り出すことができます。また、ポケットにパンパンにシールを詰め込んでも、ファイル自体が自立している＆ポケットが低いので、立てたシールを1枚ずつめくって使いたいものを探しやすくなっています。 このように収納しやすく、入れたものが出しやすくなっているのです。

• サクラクレパスと整理収納アドバイザー・水谷妙子さんがコラボ！文房具や子どもの作品の収納が一気にできて便利すぎる
• 「2段階衣替え」「分類分け」で子ども服がすっきり！ 整理収納アドバイザーが伝授
• しっかり備えておきたい防災グッズ！子育て家庭の必需品から防災セットまで徹底紹介

アクセスランキング（ライフ）

俳優・高橋克明さん「心筋梗塞」で逝去 前兆となる“3つの初期症状”を医師が解説

父はエルメス元取締役、曾祖父は東工大創設者…辛酸なめ子が出会った生粋のお嬢さまの英国留学を運命づけた「母のクリスマス」

「ATMでお金おろしたら」新紙幣の裏に落書き…マジ勘弁！　ネット騒然「こういうのも犯罪にしてほしいよね」

「タンス預金」が300万円を超えたので「車の買い替え」に使用したいのですが、税務署に指摘されませんか？

“異例の成績”報道の悠仁さまに東大の「共通テスト重視」が与える影響は？【秋篠宮家の学校選び】

もしもの地震、どう備えればいいの？

3分でできる避難シミュレーションを体験

雑誌アクセスランキング（ライフ）

絶海の孤島・青ヶ島在住の40歳女性が語る、“日本一人口が少ない村”の特殊すぎる葬儀事情「島には葬儀場も火葬場もない」「お坊さんもいないから…」

「これ、がんじゃんかよ。お医者さんになんて言われてんだよ！」人気料理人・笠原将弘が思わず声を荒げた亡き妻が“がんと診断された瞬間”

「移住5年、40歳で無理やり自治会長…！」野生動物に怯え、回覧板は訃報ばかり…移住組が震えながら後悔する「地方瓦壊の地獄度」

「95％大丈夫」と言われた1週間後に乳がんが判明「頭が真っ白になって病院のベンチで元夫に電話して」園田マイコが経験した5年間の闘病生活

体の疲れよりもっと厄介…脳内科医が指摘「45歳以上に多くみられる"脳の機能低下"を招くNG生活習慣」

How to Take a Break — The Case for Empty Brain Hours

Welcome to Soft Launch , a column by Elyse Fox on mental health and wellbeing in a world that often feels anything but soft and cushy. In this installment of the column, Elyse talks about how to take a break.

Do you ever take a moment to consider the time you spend doing things for others? Yes, things like making someone a snack or running errands for your family jump out. But there are many seemingly-smaller ways that we're actually working to make other people happy, like giving our immediate attention to incoming texts and email alerts, or the many ways we’ve become ‘on-call’ for any and every one.

I was catching up with a friend recently, exchanging excitement for an upcoming vacation across the world. When I asked if she had any trips or exciting things coming up this season, she shared that anything close to a break was at the bottom of her list of priorities. She said it with such pride, as if boundless work garnered an award. Trust me, I get it, there’s always something that must be done, and in a culture that still prioritizes the hustle, we can start to feel like we must constantly be busy in order to achieve success. We might even wonder whether we deserve a break unless we've worked ourselves to the bone. But that doesn't take into account the very real ways that giving out our time and energy to others — whether at work, school, online, or in our friendships — can wear on us.

This is where empty brain hours come in. In the name of mental health and self-care, sometimes clearing the decks and letting your mind wander is the best thing you can do to recharge your batteries.

In fact, taking breaks is crucial to maintaining our mental health. If you're in one of those stress spirals where you’re on the brink of a meltdown just because your brain’s juggling a hundred things at once, taking a break can actually help. I’m not talking about a full-on vacation (though that would be nice). I’m talking about stepping away for a few minutes. A quick walk, a 15-minute Facetime with a friend, or even just staring blankly at some art for a bit. “Breaks can improve our moods, overall well-being and performance capacity,” Charlotte Fritz, PhD, an associate professor in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology at Portland State University in Oregon, told the American Psychological Association. Though it might seem like stepping away from the tasks stressing you out would lead to more stress since the tasks aren't getting done during that time, it actually lowers your stress levels and helps you avoid that total breakdown you’re always one email away from.

So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best way to get stuff done.

One of my favorite reminders is that doing nothing can actually make you more creative. Who knew? Research suggests that a wandering mind is helpful in supporting creativity, problem-solving, and mood. But, it can be difficult to let your mind roam free when you know how much you have to do. In order to make sure I'm properly doing nothing, I schedule breaks into my calendar to break up the day. This ensures that you'll carve out time to get those crucial moments of total blankness, just absolutely nothing going on upstairs.

Ok, now this part is tough. Scrolling through TikTok does not an empty brain make. Last year, the U.S. Surgeon General , issued the first-ever advisory on social media use and how it can harm young people's mental health. Taking a break from your screen can do wonders for your mental health, but also consider creating a sustainable healthy routine with social media. When you're trying to quiet your mind and take your mid-day reset, looking at Instagram pictures that can trigger all kinds of feelings and questions isn't exactly the best way to get your juices flowing. See, empty brain hours are a time to go inside yourself, to let your stress out and see what takes its place. You want that inspiration coming directly from you — not from your frenemy that you can't unfollow.

While we're talking about little breaks throughout the day, the bigger issue at hand is creating healthy boundaries that actually support your ability to be your best self. Deciding when to take breaks can mean blocking off a few five-minute windows throughout the day to empty your brain, but it also means knowing when you need a more substantial rest. It means staying in when you're feeling overwhelmed by your social life, or taking a mental health day when you need one. It can also mean taking a trip like mine, or having a staycation in you're able to.

I encourage you to give yourself what’s owed, don’t feel guilty about it, and try not to work yourself into the ground. With that said, I'm going to go take a break.

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Andrew left case spooks short sellers to add research warnings.

(Bloomberg) -- Short sellers are beefing up disclaimers in their research reports in the clearest signal yet that last month’s criminal charges against Andrew Left are reverberating through the industry.

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Hindenburg Research and Kerrisdale Capital both upped warnings in reports this week in the wake of the charges against Left, who is accused of misleading investors by making quick trades after issuing his investment recommendations.

The new language shows that short sellers have long-term concerns about the impact of the Left case on an industry that critics say sometimes operates in legal gray areas. US authorities brought the charges against Left as part of a yearslong crackdown against traders who tout their bearish bets and can reap a profit if their predictions are right.

While Hindenburg made a small tweak to language about “derisking” in a legal disclaimer it includes at the bottom of its reports, Kerrisdale took the opportunity to blast the government’s case. The firm said the charges had upended its belief that it was enough to issue truthful reports with disclaimers that made it clear they could make money from a stock falling — without a detailed explanation of their trading strategy.

“So in the absence of second-by-second trading updates and so that investors don’t feel wronged that we may close out of a lot of a position very quickly after publishing, just assume that that is exactly what we’ll do,” Kerrisdale said in the fine print of a report Tuesday. “Then, you won’t be, er, defrauded. Or something like that.”

Kerrisdale and Hindenburg declined to comment on the changes. Neither firm has been accused of any wrongdoing.

Once one of the most active short sellers on Wall Street, Left, the founder of Citron Research, was charged in July with securities fraud and accused of generating about $20 million in illicit profits. He pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Los Angeles.

Left, 54, allegedly exploited his ability to move stocks in almost two dozen companies, including American Airlines Group Inc. and Tesla Inc. Prosecutors say he misled investors with inflammatory tweets and “extreme” target prices in hopes of nudging a stock up or down just long enough to make his own trades. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel civil case.

Some short sellers say they are concerned that the government appears to have wildly misunderstood how the short-selling industry works. Among Left’s key defenses are his own disclaimers.

Left’s lawyer, James Spertus, said the charges will undermine traders who provide a valuable service by exposing companies that are overvalued as a result of accounting fraud or other hidden malfeasances.

‘Truthful Information’

“The theory of the case is that the people who publish truthful information must also disclose their private trading intentions — that is going to cut off the flow of truthful information to the markets,” Spertus said in an interview.

The cases against Left stem from a wide-ranging US effort to examine relationships between hedge funds and skeptical researchers. The probes have rattled the industry for three years as investigators have sought information on dozens of money managers and activists, as well as transactions involving more than 50 stocks.

The case will at least make short sellers more cautious about some issues, including price targets, “because there’s an indictment out there,” said Kir Kahlon, founder and chief investment officer at Scorpion Capital. He doesn’t predict a chilling effect from the case, per se, as much of the indictment is specific to Left’s alleged conduct and doesn’t target short selling itself.

“The indictment makes no allegations about the practice of price targets or short selling,” Kahlon said. “They are just going after false statements, that’s it.”

Ivan Cosovic, the founder of a data firm that tracks activist short sellers’ campaigns, said that so far this year, the number of new short reports is on par with last year and it might be too soon to see an effect on the industry.

“The true impact of the Citron-SEC situation on publishing strategy of activist short sellers might only become apparent in the coming months,” said Cosovic, founder of Breakout Point, based in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Tweets, Statements

The Left indictment stitches together his tweets and other public statements with confidential electronic communications to show what prosecutors describe as intentional efforts to move stock prices and mislead investors.

Left’s trading around price targets is just part of the case. The indictment also alleges he hid Citron’s financial relationships with a hedge fund, even fabricating invoices and wiring payments through a third party to conceal his profit.

Spertus said Left posted a disclaimer on his website saying no one should make assumptions about his trading. And, he said, Left’s predictions about companies were accurate.

“Prices don’t always move toward the target in a linear way and it could take a year or two before the target is reached,” Spertus said. “The idea that someone has to hold on until their target price is reached or disclose their own trading intentions — that’s just going to stop the flow of information to the market.”

--With assistance from Carmen Reinicke, Bailey Lipschultz and Hema Parmar.

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Met Police log 1,000 female genital mutilation reports over 10 years but only two lead to convictions

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More than 1,000 reports of female genital mutilation ( FGM ) have been logged by the Metropolitan Police over the last decade - but just two have resulted in criminal convictions.

New data released by mayor Sadiq Khan’s office has revealed that some 1,069 reports relating to the crime were submitted to the Met between January 2015 and July this year.

But in only two of the cases has the perpetrator been brought to justice, partly due to the difficulty of pursuing a crime which may have taken place several years ago and often in another country.

The data appears to show a substantial rise in reports this year compared with last, with 121 offences logged between January 1 and July 10 this year. This is up from the 78 reports received in the whole of 2023 - though City Hall cautioned that “direct comparisons cannot be made” due to the adoption of a new crime recording system by the Met in February this year.

The mayor’s team added that the figures were “not necessarily offences that have taken place but are crime reports in which a safeguard flag has been applied to either highlight specialist support is needed, manage a risk by raising it with partnership agencies, or to raise a potential connection between a crime or an incident that might have occurred”.

In February this year, for the first time in the Met’s history, officers were able to secure justice for an FGM victim where the crime occurred abroad .

“This was a complex and sensitive case that came to light after the victim confided in a teacher almost 12 years ago,” the mayor’s office said. “The defendant was sentenced at the Old Bailey Crown Court to seven years’ imprisonment.”

That case was only the second time in UK history that somebody had been convicted of FGM since it became illegal in 1985. The first was in February 2019, when the mother of a three-year-old victim was sentenced to 11 years for FGM offences.

The data on the issue was requested by Unmesh Desai, a Labour member of the London Assembly .

He said: “FGM is a form of misogynistic violence that has no place in London in the 21st century. Those who perpetrate it should face consequences for their actions - regardless of when or where it was carried out.

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“We know that there are challenges to this - often the violence happened several years ago or was done overseas. However, there are times when police can and do prosecute other forms of violence against women that happened a long time ago successfully, such as cases of childhood sexual exploitation.”

Naana Otoo-Oyortey, executive director of the Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development (FORWARD), said FGM “remains a hidden form of abuse, as such data on incidents in London cannot be routinely collected by the Met Police ”.

She added: “The 2015 FGM Serious Crimes Act introduced a duty on regulated professionals including healthcare, teachers and social care workers to report to the police known cases of FGM found in girls under 18 years.

“While these cases may often be historic cases of FGM, they aim to support those affected and protect girls within their families.

“However, because this data is not shared with FGM specialist support services, vulnerable girls at risk and their families are not adequately protected from FGM. This needs to be rectified to ensure maximum protection for girls.”

In a statement following the second ever conviction of the crime in February this year, Met detective superintendent Andy Furphy, whose team led the investigation, said: “Our mission is to prevent FGM from taking place, working with local communities and expert health partners to achieve this and safeguard vulnerable children.

“We know FGM can be a taboo subject, which is rarely discussed within families and communities – we must build trust with those impacted so we can protect victims. It’s not our job to judge and we will always remain sensitive and respectful.”

He added that he hoped the latest sentence would “act as a real deterrent to those who choose to harm children in this way” and that the Met will “use this result as an opportunity to continue to raise awareness of this topic, ensuring victims know that there is support and help out there”.

For Mr Desai, who represents the City of London, Tower Hamlets, Newham, and Barking and Dagenham at City Hall, the issue cannot be separated from the fact that “many women in London do not have trust or confidence in the police to deal with their cases properly - and these low rates of conviction do nothing to challenge that belief”.

The assembly member warned: “The Met, courts and justice system must do everything in their power to prosecute these cases so that we can make it clear: FGM has no place in London. This must include world-class victim care, helping FGM survivors through the criminal justice process.

“I am grateful to survivors and advocates who lend their voices to call for change. I want to see more done to raise awareness of FGM, particularly in schools.

“We know that victims of FGM can often be very young, so it is important that we make it clear to all young women that they should not be subject to it - and that there are places to turn to if they think their families, communities or partners expect it of them.”

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FDA approves Neffy, a nasal spray alternative to an EpiPen that does not need a needle to stop an allergic reaction

Those at risk of a severe allergic reaction always have handy an EpiPen just in case. But soon their life might be saved by a spray in the nose rather than a needle to the thigh.

Last week the FDA approved Neffy, an epinephrine nasal spray, for use in emergency allergic reactions for kids and adults.

Retired allergist at the Northwest Asthma & Allergy Center Paul Williams said the spray “certainly has the potential” to become the preferred delivery of the drug over an autoinjector, commonly known as an EpiPen.

“A big advantage to this product is that it is not a shot. A lot of people don’t use their autoinjector out of fear of the needle, even when it could save their life. That is especially true for children with allergies who may be afraid of needles,” Williams said.

According to the FDA announcement, the nasal spray is the first epinephrine product that is not administered by injection.

“The availability of epinephrine nasal spray may reduce barriers to rapid treatment of anaphylaxis. As a result, Neffy provides an important treatment option and addresses an unmet need,” said FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research associate director Kelly Stone in a statement.

While most allergic reactions are minor and go away on their own, anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that can be life threatening. These serious symptoms typically present themselves within minutes of exposure to certain foods, medications or insect stings that can cause anaphylaxis.

In these allergic reactions, the constriction of airways cause wheezing, shortness of breath and the inability for air to reach the lungs. Epinephrine relaxes these airways, reduces swelling and allows blood to flow normally. According to Williams, anaphylaxis is typically only fatal because of a delay of epinephrine being applied. For that reason, those at high risk of these reactions usually carry epinephrine in the form of a large autoinjector that is put into the thigh.

Neffy is sprayed into one nostril in a single dose – similar to other nasal sprays like Narcan. A second dose can be administered in the same nostril if symptoms worsen or don’t improve.

ARS Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed Neffy, said in a statement they hoped the nasal spray could be an alternative to those who want to avoid injecting epinephrine.

“A treatment alternative that avoids the need to inject epinephrine with a needle, which can be fraught with anxiety and fear for many – our team has worked tirelessly to create an easy-to-carry, easy-to-use, needle-free device that offers peace of mind to patients and caregivers by enabling them to administer epinephrine quickly and confidently when needed,” ARS Pharmaceuticals CEO Richard Lowenthal said in a statement.

According to the FDA, Neffy was approved based on the results of four studies of 175 healthy adults, which found epinephrine measured in the blood at adequate rates. Importantly, these test subjects were not in anaphylaxis when tested – a life-threatening emergency that cannot be observed in laboratory conditions.

For this reason Williams believes that for the time being Neffy should be seen as an addition to an EpiPen, rather than a replacement.

“At this point we don’t know for sure if any limitations from this drug will become apparent with actual anaphylactic cases,” he said – calling for the spray to be used as a “backup” to an autoinjector. “Hopefully we’ll get that experience over a one or two year period.”

One possible limitation is if anaphylaxis causes their nose to swell, Neffy may become less effective, Williams said. Neffy comes with a warning that certain nasal conditions, such as nasal polyps or a history of nasal surgery, may affect absorption.

It is often recommended those with severe allergies carry two EpiPens. Having an autoinjector and a nasal spray instead could be more convenient, he said.

“This spray is a somewhat smaller device, so it can more easily be carried by a lot of adolescents and older children who don’t always carry their EpiPens. Because it’s a little bit bulky, particularly if you have to carry two,” he said.

Neffy is approved for children and adults who weigh at least 66 pounds. Schools and many other public spaces that accommodate children have EpiPens in stock for emergencies. It remains unclear if Neffy could supplement schools’ autoinjector supply.

In a statement, a Washington Department of Health spokesperson said their agency would be announcing a new statewide standing order on epinephrine that includes Neffy. The new rules will make it easier for schools to obtain the drug, the statement read.

Spokane Public Schools has 1,194 students with an epinephrine plan on file. In a statement, Executive Director of School Support Services Rebecca Doughty welcomed the addition of Neffy as an option for schools.

“Our nurses are always prepared to utilize whatever medication the student’s provider has ordered and are comfortable doing so. A medication that can be delivered nasally instead of via needle will always be preferable for a child,” she said.

According to ARS Pharmaceutical, Neffy will be available within eight weeks of the FDA approval. With commercial insurance a prescription of two single-use Neffy devices should cost a $25 copay, according to the organizations. Without insurance Neffy will cost $199 for two doses. Each dose of Neffy lasts for 30 months.

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Technology is redefining health care and it’s not only cutting-edge surgical treatments and advances in important routine screenings like mammograms.