Report: Verizon seeks $1B price cut on Yahoo

Verizon is seeking a $1 billion price reduction on its pending purchase of Yahoo after the internet company suffered a disastrous couple of weeks, according to a report in the New York Post.

{mosads}Verizon announced in July it would purchase Yahoo for $4.8 billion, but the deal is still being finalized, leaving the price still technically negotiable. The hope was to pare data harvested by Yahoo and recent Verizon purchase AOL.

In late September, Yahoo revealed 500 million accounts had been breached by what it described as a foreign attacker. This week, Reuters reported that Yahoo had secretly complied with an order to develop software to help the National Security Agency surreptitiously search for emails — a move so internally controversial, the chief information security officer resigned in protest. Verizon denied the Reuters report.

A source close to the negotiations told the Post, “In the last day we’ve heard that [AOL boss] Tim [Armstong] is getting cold feet. He’s pretty upset about the lack of disclosure and he’s saying, ‘Can we get out of this or can we reduce the price?’”