Internet and media company Yahoo reported a revenue of $1.3 billion in the third quarter of 2016, up 6.1% from $1.23 billion in the same quarter last year. The company reported an uptake in users after September 22nd, the day it was revealed that data from 500 million Yahoo accounts was hacked. Overall the company reported an uptake in page views on its properties, in mails sent and read, and in page views on core verticals. While Yahoo cites this as growth, it is more likely a result of users logging in to check if they were hacked, and/or to migrate to other services. Interestingly, around the same time Yahoo made it more difficult to migrate user accounts. The company had also revealed in October that it had scanned all customer emails for information tied to a suspected terrorist group. Given these concerns, the growth rate will be far more convincing if Yahoo is able to maintain it over the next few quarters. Even more glaringly, these issues have caused doubt over Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo. Verizon had said last week that it has a ‘reasonable basis’ to believe Yahoo’s data breach represented a material impact that could allow it to withdraw from the $4.8 billion deal. The company is apparently looking to get a $1 billion discount on the Yahoo deal, although this was not confirmed by either party. Overall, despite the better looking numbers, Yahoo seems to be on a downward spiral. Even more damningly, the company even…
