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Yahoo Bans Working from Home, Tells Remote Employees “You Must Come to the Office”

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who, at the relatively young age of 37 left a thirteen-year career with Google to take the reins at Yahoo in July of 2012, has just decreed that all the remote employees at Yahoo, who already had work from home arrangements, will now be required to instead work in a Yahoo! office. Oh, sure, she used head HR henchman (or henchwoman) Jackie Reses to do the dirty work, but it was mandated by Mayer. Here’s the memo that went out:

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Blackberry Outage on Day of iPhone 5 Release, on Heels of Being Dropped by Yahoo

From the BlackBerry outage, to Yahoo giving it the boot, BlackBerry makers Research in Motion (RIM) have not been having the best week, and many are concluding that it is the beginning of the end for the beleaguered company. Whether it is the end, or just a series of unfortunate events, there is no doubt that they’re are struggling fiercely to stay afloat amidst market-dominating Apple, and their runner-up, the Android market.

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Yahoo Names New CEO Marissa Mayer; Could She Be Yahoo’s Ticket to Salvation?

Yahoo surprised the world by announcing that they have hired Google executive – and Google CEO Larry Page’s ex – Marissa Mayer, making her Yahoo’s 5th CEO in as many years. This move puts Mayer, 37, among the tech business female elite, with the likes of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this move is Mayer’s young age and lack of experience for such a big undertaking.

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Yahoo Hacked by D33D Company, Breach Extends to Users of Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and Other Email Providers

There was talk over the last week or so that Yahoo had been hacked, but what wasn’t mentioned during this period of speculation was that the potential hacking not only affected Yahoo users, but also users of Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, MSN, Comcast, Verizon, SBC Global, Live.com, and BellSouth. Today, Yahoo confirmed that it has in fact been hacked, indicating that a file with over 400,000 usernames and passwords – taken from various accounts, not just Yahoo accounts – was compromised by a group of hackers known as D33D Company and posted online. The data has since been taken offline.

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Yahoo Lowers the Boom on 2000 Employees with Massive Lay-Off

Yahoo’s newest CEO, Scott Thompson, announced today the laying off of 2000 employees. According to Thompson, the layoffs will save Yahoo $375 million a year. Hrmmm, we think we see part of the reason that Yahoo is losing so much money.

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Cascade Insights: Microsoft Hotmail Beats Google Gmail and Yahoo Mail at Blocking Spam

Microsoft Hotmail, the world’s largest email provider, is better at blocking spam than Google Gmail and Yahoo Mail, according to a study released by the independent research firm Cascade Insights. The study only tested these companies – the so-called big three email providers – and was sponsored by Microsoft, which funded the research to combat their bad reputation for allowing loads of spam into users’ inboxes.

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Yahoo for Sale After CEO Fired

Two of the original big 4 ISPs (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and Earthlink) have now gone up for sale in as many weeks. First, last week, we told you about AOL being for sale. Now, this week, the Yahoo Board of Directors has summarily fired Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz, and have made clear that they would accept the right offer for the sale of Yahoo.

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AOL and Yahoo to Merge and form AO-Hoo?

Once considered two of the top ISPs, AOL and Yahoo have both been somewhat stagnant for years. While Yahoo’s new CEO, Carol Bartz, has managed to stabalize Yahoo’s profits by cutting costs, they are far from out of the woods. Despite AOL’s market value – at just $2.7 billion – being only 13 percent of Yahoo’s, AOL is said to be exploring various arrangements that could see it buying Yahoo or, at least, merging with Yahoo.

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Yahoo Still Using Web Beacons – This Time in Their Email to You

It was almost 5 years ago that we first reported that Yahoo uses web beacons to track their users’ movements across the Internet. So Yahoo’s use of web beacons is nothing new. But recently people who subscribe to Yahoo groups have started receiving Yahoo “Updates in Your Groups” email (sent from groupsupdates@yahoogroups.com), which has this little notice at the bottom: “To learn more about Yahoo!’s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy.”

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Yes, Yahoo Groups is Down – But it’s a Planned Outage

If you are finding that Yahoo Groups is down, don’t panic. Yahoo Groups has a planned outage scheduled for Thursday, April 1st. While it is April Fools day, the notice actually went out on Wednesday, March 31st.

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Google, Apple, Yahoo Win Federal Permission to Hide Race and Gender Workforce Data as “Trade Secrets”

Google, Apple and Yahoo (as well as Oracle and Applied Materials) this week prevailed against a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request that was seeking to require them to share their workforce data as it relates to race and gender. Under the Freedom of Information Act request, the San Jose Mercury News newspaper wanted to know what percentage of Apple’s, Google’s, and Yahoo’s workforce was African American, what percentage was Hispanic, Asian, caucasion, etc., and what percentage were women. Apple, Google and Yahoo, and Oracle and Applied Materials, claimed that these details were trade secrets, and that their businesses would be negatively impacted if they were forced to reveal this information.

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Yahoo “Spying Guide” Debunked – False Alarm Raised Over Allegation of ISP Spying Guides and Selling User Data

Take one part paranoia, one part zeal, two parts conspiracy theory, and someone with too much time on their hands, and what do you get? No, it’s not the sequel to Minority Report. It’s the allegation that Yahoo and other ISPs are spying on their users and selling their users’ information, with publication of the so-called “Yahoo Spying Guide”, and other ISP “Spying Guides” as “proof” that Yahoo and other ISPs have put a price on their own users’ heads.

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City Job Application Demands Passwords to Your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Other Accounts

Montana, once known as “Big Sky” state, just became the “Big Spy” state, with the revelation that those applying for jobs with Monatana’s City of Bozeman are required to provide their username and password for any social networking site to which they belong, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google, Yahoo, and others.

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Google, MS and Yahoo Sign Global Network Initiative to Protect User Privacy in Other Countries

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all signed on to the Global Initiative Network, pledging to protect the privacy of their users around the world, including – perhaps particularly – users in countries such as China, where demands that ISPs rat out their users are routinely made.

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Is Your Yahoo Profile Deleted, Missing or Blank? Yahoo Did It on Purpose

Over the weekend, Yahoo quietly “upgraded” their profile system, resulting, intentionally, in a great deal of user data – specifically profile and alias data – being removed.