According to multiple sources, Verizon has been able to negotiate a price reduction on its Yahoo acquisition from $4.8 billion to $4.55 billion due to Yahoo's customer-identity security breaches, which includes stolen data associated with 1 billion accounts.
Jason Rose, SVP of marketing at
Gigya (customer identity management software company), advises marketers to pay attention to the latest development in this story because it reinforces that protection of customer data should be a priority for marketers - and this news is a perfect example of how companies lose market value when customer trust is compromised.
"Yahoo damaged trust in their brand after last year's hacking revelations," said Rose. "This hack has now allowed Verizon to negotiate a lower acquisition price, reinforcing the reality that companies lose market value when customer trust is compromised. Customer trust begins with secured data, and what we are seeing with Yahoo and Verizon demonstrates again that marketers should make management and protection of customer data a priority."