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Outgoing Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer is giving up her 2016 bonus and any stock award for this year in the wake of the disastrous hacking scandals that plagued the company in 2016.
Mayer’s seemingly benevolent gesture was made at the same time the company, soon to be acquired by Verizon Communications Inc. at a discount from the initial takeover price, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission more details about its 2014 hacking — including the fact that the company knew it had occurred in 2014 but didn’t do anything about it.
Yahoo once again blamed a “state-sponsored hacker” for the data breach which their security team and senior executives were made aware of at the time. But while they took minor action, including notifying 26 users targeted in the hack and adding new security features, senior executives failed to comprehend the extent of the hack, which is believed to have affected possibly more than 1 billion users, and declined to investigate the incident further.
On the flipside, Yahoo claims that they found no intentional suppression of information versus seemingly gross incompetence.
“I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo’s success in 2016,” Mayer (pictured) said in a post on the Yahoo-owned Tumblr.
Along with Mayer’s commitment to hand over her bonuses, believed to be worth around $14 million, Yahoo General Counsel and Secretary Ronald Bell has resigned his post, though it’s likely he was pushed out. The report concluded that the failure to investigate the hacking in 2014 was due to Yahoo’s legal department’s not investigating the matter further. The report also notes that “the relevant legal team had sufficient information to warrant substantial further inquiry in 2014, and they did not sufficiently pursue it.”
Mayer, along with five other members of the company’s board, have already announced they will resign once the Verizon acquisition is completed. Despite Yahoo’s disclosure in its new filing, an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether Yahoo should have disclosed the data breach to investors earlier is ongoing.
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