Verizon Is Rebranding Yahoo, AOL As 'Oath'

Nathan Ingraham reports via Engadget: Somewhere along the way, Verizon's planned purchase of Yahoo got real complicated. Thanks to security breaches of gargantuan proportions, Yahoo has lost a ton of value -- and the company was struggling even when Verizon announced its intentions to buy the former internet juggernaut. Part of the value lost is in the Yahoo brand, which Verizon apparently considers toxic at this point. To that end, Verizon is changing the name of the combined Yahoo and AOL company. Business Insider first reported that "Oath" will be the new name of the company (which would be the parent company of Engadget). Minutes after we published this story, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong confirmed the change in a tweet. Engadget also makes note of a Recode report, which indicates that current Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will not continue with the new company.

Oath

[Anonymous Coward]

I take this oath that I will never go to that site.

Re: Oath

[alexo]

Prick your finger or it didn't happen.

Just don't do that the other way around.

Re:

[thomn8r]

Prick your finger or it didn't happen.

Directions unclear...

Re:

[KieranC]

'can oath!

Re:

[dwywit]

'can oath!

'ken oath
my oath
bloody oath
oath of allegiance
oath of fealty
oath of blood

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Oather Pendragon.

Better names

[goombah99]

I think two trending names would be:

Huli
Cath

What's your suggestion?

Re:

[war4peace]

Shit.

they are swearing a tarryable oath

[swschrad]

"oaf" would have been more like it

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

Marvelous. That's what I'm going to call it.

Re: Oath ^h^h^h^h oaf

[mnemotronic]

oaf dot com. Has that delicate air of, let us say, ignorance mixed with a helping of incompetence an a whiff of disregard for the users. I also detect a bouquet of greed and a woody essence of concern for little but Marissa's golden fudge-packing parachute.

Re:

[Frederic54]

I'm on the internet since about 1990, saw WWW and Mosaic and all, I went on Yahoo! a few times because it was a search engine, then I went to Lycos and Excite and Altavista and finally Google. As a European I never went on AOL and have not went on yahoo for more than 20 years.

I too take an oath to never go to that site!

AIM?

[dejitaru]

But then what will become of my 19 year old AIM account? Sure I have no one to talk to now, but it's currently my oldest account that I enjoy keeping for nostalgic purposes :(

Re:

[phantomfive]

Maybe nothing. This is probably similar to Google becoming Alphabet......a corporate structure change that has little effect on the consumer facing brands.

Given the companies involved, you can be sure that the 'oath' is to monetize your personal data in any way possible.

Re:AIM?

[jtara]

Maybe nothing. This is probably similar to Google becoming Alphabet......a corporate structure change that has little effect on the consumer facing brands.

But, in this case, it is all about the consumer-facing brand.

• They would like everybody to forget about Yahoo
• And, everybody already has forgotten about AOL

Re:AIM?

[phantomfive]

I don't think so, the confirmation tweet (quoted in the article) mentions 20+ brands that are going to live under the Oath entity.
And frankly, overarching gestures with funny names, lots of brands, plus reorganizations that don't do anything, all in an attempt to......increase productivity? Are just the kinds of things that Tim Armstrong likes to do.

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

Now that everyone knows that Oaf is the new Yahoo, every other brand they lump into the Oaf brand is going to be viewed as being as toxic as yahoo itself.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Maybe, but I doubt Huffington Post readers will care at all.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

Yahoo's brand is so poisoned it has negative value now. They still have intellectual property, trained staff, and network and hardware in place that has value. Maybe in 10 years Yahoo's brand will have retro-value again. Occasionally failed brands are brought back years later and met with appreciation as people remember them with nostalgia rather than for how bad they were. You see car companies do this all the time.

Wouldn't surprise me if GM brings back Pontiac in a few years, now everyone's forgotten

Re:

[Grishnakh]

Wouldn't surprise me if GM brings back Pontiac in a few years, now everyone's forgotten how bad they were and only remember it as "hey Granddad had a Ponitiac".

They have to wait for everyone to forget about the Aztek.

And besides, GM shed a bunch of brands because they simply had too many; it was too much corporate overhead, and too many dealerships competing with other GM brands instead of with other automakers. I do have to question why they kept around GMC, since their crap is exactly the same as Chevy's

I wouldn't mind having Marissa Mayer

[Anonymous Coward]

show me her Oath face

Re:

[Stormwatch]

You mean her ahegao face?

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

She would even screw that up.

Oath vs OAuth

[darkain]

Oath vs OAuth. I see absolutely zero room for any potential confusion there at all in the tech world!

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

Oath vs OAuth. I see absolutely zero room for any potential confusion there at all in the tech world!

The "tech world" is not their target audience. And it is possible that between now and when they pull the wraps off the name will change.

I really don't understand the value to them at all.I really don't understand how any of the assets, including subscriber lists, can have anywhere near the value they paid. They should have let Yahoo die.

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

I bet it will anyway. There is no way Yahoo will start being trustworthy just because they changed their name to hide their true identity.

Re:

[6ULDV8]

Could be fixed with a simple trademark. "OAuth, We're Useful ®"

I doubt Verizon spent much time or money coming up with the name.

Re:

[speedplane]

Oath vs OAuth. I see absolutely zero room for any potential confusion there at all in the tech world!

I can't wait for some security hole to be exposed because someone wrote "import oauth; oauth.connect()" and got a company logo instead of a secure channel.

Re:

[thegarbz]

The tech world will not get confused. The people who will get confused shouldn't actually ever need to even google OAuth, let alone understand it.

Prediction...

[bmk67]

Both are still going to suck.

Business plans

[thegarbz]

Step 1: Buy a company for it's brand recognition.
Step 2: Don't use the company's brand.
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Writedown.

Re:

[Trailer Trash]

Step 1: Buy a company for it's brand recognition.
Step 2: Don't use the company's brand.
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Writedown.

Step 5. Write a new book on turd polishing and cash in big time.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Write a book on turd polishing and cash in big time.

Somebody beat you to it. [amazon.com]

Alternative Business plans

[n329619]

Step 1: Buy a turd for its quality.
Step 2: Use the turd.
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Sell the turd somehow.

Re:

[sexconker]

expertsexchange.com

Re:

[BigIrv]

perfect!

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

expertsexchange.com

You're absolutely right Mr. S. E. Xconker they had a terrible name!

They deserved an awful name, that site drove me nuts with it's pay wall and I'd occasionally accidentally click on one of their links when searching for how to solve something. I had to block them in google.

Re:

[RubberDogBone]

Gannett renaming itself Tegna is a pretty shitty one.

Fucking Tegna. Some consultant made a bonus coming up with that. And somebody else got promoted for coming up with Oath.

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

buy.com to Rakutan.

They went from an easy to remember really valuable .com address to something I'm not even sure I spelled correctly.

Re:

[nwf]

So true! I used to shop at buy.com rather frequently. After that odd name change, I basically lost interest.

Re:

[ShaunC]

"Flooz" was pretty fucking bad.

Go with Yahool

[kiviQr]

They should have choosen Yahool as a new name!

Late Aprils Fools?

[Bentbob]

Was Verizon late to the Aprils Fools party?

I don't get it

[Tablizer]

If they are purchasing it, just call it "Verizon". "AOL X" (service) would now be "Verizon X".

Re:

[14erCleaner]

It's because they're l'oath to complete the purchase, and want to keep it separate.

Re:

[Tablizer]

In that case, call the division "Qaranteam"

Synonym for "to swear"?

[david.emery]

Makes sense, I've sworn a streak of oaths at Verizon, Yahoo and even AOL at various points in the past.

dave

Re:

[Zaelath]

Will fit right in with existing Australian slang; Fucking Oath!

Oath?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Oath" as in the kind of swear words I use when referring to the evil, blundering bastard child of Yahoo and Verizon.

Will it still be

[FrankHaynes]

Always OverLoaded???

I just saw an AOL e-mail address on a message to a Yahoogroup (yes, those still exist, unlike the dinosaurs) and had to re-read the @aol.com domain multiple times to believe my eyes. Yahoo has been so lost for so long that I can't understand what value there is inside that empty husk besides the salvage value of all their hardware and real estate holdings.

And AOL?? SRSLY?!?!

Limey

[Anonymous Coward]

So Yahoo UK becomes Oath UK? lol

OATH?

[OhSoLaMeow]

Oh, Another Troubled Headf*ck?

Re:

[Stormy Dragon]

Odd Acquisitions To Have

Zero Authorization?

[Cyberpunk Reality]

Anyone can see your credentials and log into your accounts? _Real_ _public_ internet. I like it! Very honest and forthright.

OATH? Should be OAF

[RubberDogBone]

OAF would be a better name. As in, you'd have to be an OAF to go there.

Seriously, Oath? OATH? FUCK! How much did they pay the consultant who came up with this? And was it the same moron who came up with Tegna?

How it happened

[RubberDogBone]

How it happened (probably)

Hapless Consultant: I've got to come up with a new name for this pig.

Hapless Consultant: FUCK. MY. LIFE.

Hapless Consultant: Hey wait a minute.... no can't use FUCK but how about Curse. No... OATH! Yeah! Makin ma bonusess checksess

Hapless Consultant: Now what other bullshit can I come up with before Wheel of Fortune comes on?

My guess...

[denzacar]

Someone was constipated and was thus having oat flakes for breakfast.

Causing this shit to pop out a few hours later.
Alas, oat.com [oat.com] was already taken...

Better name: FLOP

[krelvin]

I think they should name it FLOP...

Re:

[e432776]

or OAF

Oath

[Northdot]

Because all the good names such as "Placenta" were already taken.

Re:

[chew8bitsperbyte]

Well they could've used "Popplers" or "Tastesicles"...

Re:

[nwf]

More like Feces Pieces

Re:

[elgatozorbas]

reference [dilbert.com]

Just more headaces

[Stan92057]

Cant see anything good of this for me .means all my email contacts will send an email to a dead domain name??not sure it works the same as a home address where mail is forwarded to the new address for a period of time. i actually pay for a @yahoo.com email address 19.00 a year its my clean address lol. cant see that staying the same either. @oath.com ugh..bad a duckduckgo well not as bad lol

Re:

[Megane]

I think they will keep the domain name around for at least a few years, no point in letting some squatter get it. Many years ago, I was surprised that american.com was owned by Cisco, and not by the airline company. They must have swallowed some other company that used it.

But...but...but...

[p51d007]

What about my old southwestern bell email account still tied to yahoo? mail.yahoo.com will now be mail.oath.com? LOL... Shoot, I don't even use it much.

Re:

[Megane]

A while back, maybe a year and a half now, ATT shut down their own outbound mail servers that allowed you to send mail with any From address as long as you were on one of their IP addresses. Now to send outbound mail, it has to go through the Yahoo outbound servers (the old server names have a CNAME to Yahoo's servers) with your ATT username and password, and the From address must be registered using Yahoo Mail configuration. And now the outbound mail servers are controlled by a direct competitor! Outsourci

Why purchase?

[manu0601]

If the brand got toxic, why do they purchase? The personal data leaked and is available for free, so where are the remaining assets?

Definitely OAF

[irving47]

I heard about it on AM radio today, so I really was sure they were saying OAF at first. Going by which companies are going into it, it definitely fits better, anyway.

Re:

[WallyL]

"Welcome to OAF!"

Floppies

[hduff]

Will they re-brand all the floppy disks?

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

So is Yahoo to most people.

Oath.

[Chas]

As in "This motherfucking service...They all need to die...NOW!"

I guess they couldn't trademark "Oaf"

[mschaffer]

If "Oath" is the best they could come up with, I really wonder what the other runner-ups were? Yaho-aol? A-OO-L?
Even "Avowal" would have been better.

Oaf

[Wild_dog!]

Not sure who picked that name.

A rose by any other name is still a rose

[Nkwe]

Xfinity is still Comcast
Yahoo by any other name is still Yahoo
AOL by any other name is still AOL

Roses smell better than all the above

Loathing Oath

[Dan Ciarlette]

I loath the name Oath.

Re:

[Dan Ciarlette]

Maybe they will send me a bunch of CDs to sign up.