Yahoo has confirmed that a 2014 data breach by what it believes was a "state-sponsored actor" exposed the account information of half a billion users, but it has yet to answer a raft of resulting questions. Among them: Why did it take so long to discover? Who decided not warn users until now? And why didn't it disclose the severity of the situation to the companies bidding to acquire it, including ultimate buyer Verizon, which was notified only a few days ago? In the meantime, if you've ever had a Yahoo account, here's what you need do.
[Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner | Recode]
For the past two years, Facebook has vastly overestimated the average time that users spent watching video on its platform, and ad buyers, marketers and publishers who used the artificially inflated metric to judge the performance of their offerings are steamed.
[Suzanne Vranica and Jack Marshall | Wall Street Journal]
Airbnb has raised at least $555 million in a new funding round led by Google Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures that values the home-rental company at $30 billion. The round remains open to additional investors and is expected to reach $850 million, relieving some of the pressure on the company to go public.
[Maureen Farrell and Greg Bensinger | Wall Street Journal]
LinkedIn bought online education startup Lynda.com 18 months ago for $1.5 billion, and now it's putting that acquisition to use. Members will start seeing suggestions for courses in their news feed, based on their jobs, listed skills and recommendations shared by friends.
[Kurt Wagner | Recode]
We're only hearing about it now, but Apple has confirmed that it bought another machine-learning startup, India's Tuplejump, back in June, its third acquisition in the sector this year. Tuplejump’s software specializes in processing and analyzing big sets of data quickly.
[Alex Webb | Bloomberg]
On the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Washington Post columnist Caitlin Dewey talks to Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode about the popularity, and the risks, of sexting, and whether compulsive sexting can rise to the level of an addiction.
[Eric Johnson | Recode]
