Not so easy for Verizon to walk away from its US$4.8b Yahoo deal

New York

IT'S time that we stopped beating up on Yahoo.

With the recent disclosure of another hacking of Yahoo, one potentially affecting more than one billion accounts, Verizon Communications has reiterated that it might seek to renegotiate its US$4.8 billion deal to acquire the beleaguered Internet company. There is speculation that the company may even try to walk away from the deal.

And because this is Yahoo, market analysts and pundits have piled on. Jim Cramer of CNBC said "who can blame" Verizon for wanting to leave the deal. Shira Ovide, a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist, also seemed to endorse a Verizon exit and labelled Yahoo "the technology industry's most hapless company".

All these people are buying into the easy narrative that Yahoo is a loser in the tech industry, unable to keep up with the likes of relative newcomers such as Snap. Their conclusion is that Yahoo is simply getting what it deserves as its core business melts away and the company goes through one management change after another. The current chief executive, Marissa Mayer, is o…