AOL and Yahoo will merge into something called Oath when Verizon’s purchase of the latter closes, saying goodbye to two of the most familiar brands of the internet era, Business Insider reported Monday.
Verizon, which acquired AOL in 2015, agreed to purchase embattled Yahoo’s core internet business for about $4.8 billion in July — eight years after Yahoo rejected a $45 billion offer from Microsoft. The part of Yahoo that Verizon is not buying, which mainly includes a piece of China’s Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan, will be renamed Altaba.
Marni Walden, Verizon executive vice president and president of product innovation and new businesses, will oversee Oath.
While Oath isn’t the most nonsensical brand name to come out of the tech and media world lately (at least it means something, unlike Altaba or Tronc, which is what Los Angeles Times parent company Tribune Publishing renamed itself last year), it does signal the end of an era for the Google and Facebook of a different, 2400 baud, time.
Verizon was able to get a deal on its Yahoo purchase earlier this year, after revelations of two massive data breaches last year gave the telecom giant the opportunity to renegotiate a lower price. Yahoo had struggled in recent years, as its suite of services were surpassed by offerings from the likes of Google and Facebook, and its media ambitions — which included signing Katie Couric to a multimillion-dollar deal and broadcasting the first-ever NFL game solely aired online — never really gained a foothold.