Verizon is selling AOL and Yahoo

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This is not meant to be a rant, I just didn’t know where else to put it.  Here is information from three websites I visited.  Thought I’d put this in here for those who may be interested. This is supposed to happen later this year.  I don’t know what will happen to AOL.

“Verizon Communications, signaling that it has given up on its media business, said on Monday that it had agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.”

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/03/business/stock-market-today
==================================
“AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm.

Wireless company Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the once-pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal.

Verizon said Monday that it will keep a 10% stake in the new company, which will be called Yahoo.”

https://www.startribune.com/verizon-sells-internet-trailblazers-yahoo-and-aol-for-5b/600052946/
==================================
“Verizon just sold AOL and Yahoo for $5 billion, and the new company will be known as ‘Yahoo’ going forward.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-sells-aol-yahoo-to-apollo-global-management-5-billion-2021-5

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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SueW

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But will my AOL trial CDs still work? That’s the pressing question.

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Cybertooth

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Indeed. Your coffee table will still be well-protected against rings from various beverage containers.

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Alice, Bob99, Cybertooth, Sky

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🤣🤣🤣  ROTFLOL!!

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Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo for a combined total of $9.23 billion in 2015-2016.

Good investment?

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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That did not take a long time for them to give it up! Verizon’s Oath umbrella entity which clearly described all of the tracking and harvesting of data from accounts could have caused a migration to other platforms or the “out of fashion” nature of AOL and Yahoo may have also been a contribution to the decision.

The aggregate news page property is also like the ratty old paper tabloids, but with more user tracking. Usually nothing good happens when sold into the hands of private equity groups!

Verizon is getting back half of the investment, probably a win for them.

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Charlie: this is dismal news to me, because when Verizon, that is my ISP and also the company that used to take care of my email bought AOL, I was, along with all those that had Verizon email accounts, as I did, dragooned into AOL for emails. They have been so-so, but not too bad. However, it looks like now I am going to get dragooned into Yahoo for my email service. Maybe Yahoo is OK, maybe it’s not, but generally speaking, the changing of whomever handles my email has never been painless. In fact, I am hating this already, in case you want to know how I feel.

By the way: that link to a NY Times article you put in your comment at the top? It is for an article that has nothing to do with any of this. I suspect that you pasted there the wrong link by mistake.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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SueW, Charlie

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We, too, have Verizon/AOL email. I visited both the AOL home page and the Verizon forums today and there is as yet no word of whether, or how, this sale might affect people with a Verizon domain email address.

 

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SueW, Charlie, OscarCP

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I agree with you Oscar, I too was dragooned into AOL and have been using the AOL website to do my email. I have found it to be adequate, but now I have no idea if there will even be an AOL website (probably not) and have never used Yahoo.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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OscarCP wrote:

Charlie: this is dismal news to me, because when Verizon, that is my ISP and also the company that used to take care of my email bought AOL, I was, along with all those that had Verizon email accounts, as I did, dragooned into AOL for emails. They have been so-so, but not too bad. However, it looks like now I am going to get dragooned into Yahoo for my email service. Maybe Yahoo is OK, maybe it’s not,

Oscar I am surprised you are still using a ISPs email services for your main email address. Or anyone actually. Get yourself a permament Email address, register a domain and use that domain for your email address and service. You can have if forwarded to another service (GMail if one simply must) or use an email client on your computer to read your email(IMHO vastly superior to any web based email service) You can have that email to your ISP account if you find that more convenient (I recently abandoned this approach as FIOS does not offer me an Email service AFAIK) Currently using POP3 and saving emails locally. I check my registars web email site every once in a while to check the spam folder there as they remain a bit over enthusiastic about spam.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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By the way, CD’s don’t make good coasters.  Water rolls right off of them and on to your coffee table.  No cork, no lip.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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wavy, Alice, Cybertooth

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Always considered both purchases to be for their user bases since neither had any real value at the time or now.  Yahoo was destroyed during the BeautifulMarissa days and AOL was a dinosaur twenty years ago.  I’d bet most twentythirtysomethings have never heard of AOL.

I’d guess someone snaps them up and maybe transfers email addresses, etc., to their domains in the fashion of hotmail which hasn’t existed except virtually since when, 2013 or so.

Maybe not.  The comments above regarding Verizon giving people AOL addresses are bizarre, what a contrary thing to do.  But not surprising; I dropped Verizon phone service long ago when I went on a pay per text plan (didn’t use texting then) and Verizon sent me many texts I had to pay for.  See ya!

CompuServe, the first BBS I heard of way back when, was bought out by H&R Block, sold to AOL, now owned by…Oh nevermind!

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Cybertooth

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Oy! I’m not thrilled with this either, as I’ve had my verizon.net email addresses forever. I had set my emails up through Outlook, so I rarely log into AOL online to check them.

Also, don’t we have to remove our “AOL mail” from our third-party programs, then add it back again — to satisfy AOL security purposes? My emails from AOL Member Services says I have to do so by June 1. From my notes: PKCano has addressed this in AskWoody: she uses Thunderbird & ATT/Yahoo: #2242190, #2287985, and #2296287

anonymous: I don’t think that Verizon gave people AOL addresses; we were able to keep our original verizon addresses (thank goodness!).

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Sky wrote:

But will my AOL trial CDs still work? That’s the pressing question.

 

I still have a 3.5″ floppy of the AOL disk.  It may be v1.2 or 1.3. They used to come about every 3 weeks…

We used to use the later CD versions for outside tree decorations during the Holidays and in the garden as bird or rabbit scares in the summer…

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That old original CD software no longer works, and I understand that the AOL software that Oath put out was a disaster.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Verizon absolutely made people switch to aol addresses. I was one of them…switched from @worldnet.att.net to @aol.com.

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SueW

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Interesting, and thanks for your comment.  Maybe those of us who had @verizon.net addresses were allowed to keep them, since the addresses included “Verizon,” the company that did the acquiring.

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There is some confusion here, maybe because some of us have not readCharlie’s comment that started this discussion with this thread:

““Verizon Communications, signaling that it has given up on its media business, said on Monday that it had agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.””

So no, Verizon is not buying, Verizon is selling. and selling to some financial outfit with no obvious experience in the communications business, but possibly plenty with buying a working concern and selling it for parts at a considerably higher total price. This possibility, to me, is a worry.

Also: we did not get a different email address when Verizon bought AOL and put as all there: I still have my Verizon.net address.

But even keeping my address name did not make it much easier for me: there were crucial steps to be taken if one wanted to keep sending and receiving emails that, as usual, were not terribly well explained.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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Charlie

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It might be an idea to figure out and soon how to secure our emails, both received and sent, now kept in our email client’s various folders, to avoid their evaporation when least expected after AOL is disposed of by the new owner in a manner perhaps not to our advantage and the servers at AOL may be turned off for good, as far as we are concerned.

My client is  the Mac’s”Mail”, those with Windows may have a different client, most likely Outlook, but the same problem, if it is really looming, it is looming over them too. And there is also the Linux crowd and the question of how they might have to deal with this.

And once we have secure our past and present correspondence from untimely disappearance, how to delete all that might be in the AOL servers while we still can.

Some of this might be unnecessary overkill, but I think these questions need to be asked.

So some helpful suggestions shall be welcome.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Charlie

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OscarCP wrote:

It might be an idea to figure out and soon how to secure our emails, both received and sent, now kept in our email client’s various folders, to avoid their evaporation when least expected after AOL is disposed of by the new owner in a manner perhaps not to our advantage and the servers at AOL may be turned off for good, as far as we are concerned.

@OscarCP, if you store locally your verizon.net email that’s been sent and received (for instance, in an Outlook PST file), that should not be affected by whatever might happen with this sale. Unless your email service is set up such that what’s on the AOL server controls what’s displayed on your email client, you should be OK.

We use the POP3 email protocol, which downloads the actual email to our PCs. AOL could be swallowed up in an earthquake tomorrow and we’d still have access to all the emails that we have ever sent and received and not deleted locally.

However, if you have your verizon.net account set up to use the IMAP email protocol, you may indeed run the risk of losing access to your emails. You can go into your email client’s account settings and see the name of the email server, particularly the incoming mail server. If it has “pop” in the address (for example, pop.verizon.net), you should be good to go. But if it says “imap,” then you may have some work to do to make sure that you don’t lose all your emails should AOL’s mail servers be taken offline.

As they say, I’m no expert on this subject, I just play one on TV. Others may be able to correct what I’ve said or fill in additional details, but I’m fairly confident that the discussion above is accurate.

 

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SueW

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I had done as you have described, @Cybertooth. Also, I decided a few years ago that I no longer wanted to use my two @verizon.net addresses . . . in case I were to change my ISP sometime in the future. (Verizon selling AOL and Yahoo never occurred to me!) So I purchased two domain names and then set up my “replacement” email addresses in Outlook. As I replied to — and sent — emails, my sig file reminded everyone to change my old address to my new address, and that’s how I migrated.  It’s time-consuming, but can be done.

Added: I also actively updated my email addresses for my many subscriptions and forums.

Win 7 SP1 Home Premium 64-bit; Office 2010; Group B (SaS); Former 'Tech Weenie'

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Cybertooth

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I would like to try what Cybertooth explained, changing from the incoming server from IMAP (as it is with AOL) to POP3. However the “server settings” part is locked, so I cannot get to them, I can’t see the settings, let alone change them. This is not supposed to happen, so it has to be something to do with AOL itself. Most likely a problem, a bug they have, because what if someone needs to change the password, for example? (And always assuming that it is OK to change the incoming AOL server and everything then will work just fine.)

An alternative is to archive the emails in the inbox (current mailbox) by saving them to a different mailbox folder. One has to create the folder and then move there any emails one wishes to save from the inbox, as explained here:

https://www.8p-design.com/en/blog/apple-mail-how-archive-your-mails-locally-free-your-server-folder

Or that is the general idea. It does take work, and one has to do it repeatedly, as emails will not archive themselves. I am not going to try it right away, being short of time, but I’ll do it later and then I’ll let the others here know how that went.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Cybertooth

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Google is your friend.
First hit at the top of the search “AOL POP3 server settings”
https://help.aol.com/articles/how-do-i-use-other-email-applications-to-send-and-receive-my-aol-mail.
There are instructions for the settings for third-party apps such as Thunderbird, Outlook, iPhone Mail App (probably the same for Mail in MacOS) below.
See attachment below – too big to insert.

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Cybertooth

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Sorry, PK: The explanation in the Website of the link you’ve just given is probably useful for other Mac users here, but it is precisely something I cannot do, because the “server settings” in Mail, is locked for AOL (at least in my Mac), as already explained. So that does not work for me and I need a different solution. I might have found it, as explained further down. I was writing that when you posted your advice, so I did not see yours until just now.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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OscarCP wrote:

selling to some financial outfit with no obvious experience in the communications business, but possibly plenty with buying a working concern and selling it for parts at a considerably higher total price. This possibility, to me, is a worry.

I think that the financial outfit is buying the vast users data base in order to sell the data to advertisers, and is not into communications.

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OscarCP, Cybertooth

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Oath/Verizon Media was upfront openly harvesting information and there are so many settings to turn off, less maybe compared to a Google account so they have a head start!

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OK, I found what is probably the easiest way to save my emails: I archived them up to the beginning of this month. The idea being to see what I would like to keep from this month (or for any period of time I might consider wise to keep them in AOL’s server, while archiving anything right away if I can’t absolutely risk to loose it) and archive those too, then just keep doing this.

HOWEVER: at first it seemed to work as advertised in some Web site I found and the emails were showing up to the very last of them in the “Archive” folder. But then, all the newly archived messages disappeared from there. After some adrenaline-driven search, I found they are now all (as far as I can tell) in the “Recovered Mail” folder. That folder is in the “On My Mac” group of mail folders (that can be seen in the left bar, if you allow the bar to show by clicking on “Mailboxes” near the window’s top left corner.) So they are accessible and still on my Mac and can still be replied or forwarded as usual after opening any of them, so they are “alive.” Whether it is a good idea to leave them there or it is better to put them somewhere else, is a topic for further research.

The emails are saved also when doing “Time Machine” backups with the Mac’s built-in back up system for saving all of one’s files on an external mass storage drive (such as mine a 2TB HD). Linux Mint has something similar to “Time Machine”, called “Time Shift.”

I imagine that some of the above could also apply to Windows, only “the names have been changed, to protect MS”, or something like that.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Cybertooth

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anonymous wrote:

CompuServe, the first BBS I heard of way back when, was bought out by H&R Block, sold to AOL, now owned by…Oh nevermind!

And such a sad day THAT was. The best BBS ever the off line abilities were unmatched today. I still recall a wonderful PC section moderated by PPReid?? One could d/l what sections one wanted and read and reply offline.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Mac users might be interested to know that I’ve asked Nathan Parker about safeguarding one’s emails from vanishing if AOL were to disappear with all our live’s secrets and memories and business email exchanges and cat GIFs and everything, in a puff of smoke. And got some answers on how to do it by exporting them to a folder in one’s Mac, so one does not have to depend on what happens to them, in this case, in the AOL’s servers. He also answered my questions on what inconveniences, if any, that might present. Summarizing: according to him: none, besides taking the not too much of a trouble of exporting them.

There are more details and those interested can look all of this up in a thread I have started today:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/mac-and-i-gadget-users-np-speaks-about-aol-safeguarding-emails-etc/

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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