Tech

AOL and Yahoo plan to call themselves by a new name after the Verizon deal closes: Oath

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AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong at Advertising Week New York 2016  John Lamparski/Getty Images

When Verizon merges Yahoo with AOL after its acquisition of Yahoo closes, the newly created division will get a new name.

That new name is Oath, sources tell Business Insider.

In a deal that was announced in July, Verizon will acquire Yahoo's core internet business for about $4.8 billion in cash.

Yahoo will be merged with Verizon's AOL unit under Marni Walden, the executive vice president and president of product innovation and new businesses, with Verizon scooping up Yahoo's search, mail, content, and ad-tech businesses.

In January, Yahoo announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that after the close of the merger, the parts of Yahoo that Verizon is not buying — which includes Yahoo's 15% of the Chinese retail giant Alibaba and a part of Yahoo Japan, a joint venture with SoftBank — would continue under the name Altaba.

It's unclear if the Yahoo name will live on for any part of the internet business that will be run by AOL. However, a big new branding campaign is expected in the coming weeks, along with more details about the new company.

Yahoo declined to comment on the new name. While an AOL spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied the new name, she told us to watch for the "launching" of the new company.

"In the summer of 2017, you can bet we will be launching one of the most disruptive brand companies in digital," she said.

The Yahoo-Verizon deal is supposed to close in the second quarter of 2017, perhaps on or before April 24. After April 24, the parties can seek a three-month extension, but there's also an opening for either party to terminate the deal.

Update: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong confirmed the new name, posting on his Twitter account Monday afternoon: "Billion+ Consumers, 20+ Brands, Unstoppable Team. #TakeTheOath. Summer 2017." 

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Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.
Avery Hartmans is a senior reporter on Insider's retail team covering the apparel industry and tracking changes in how and why people shop.  She previously worked on Insider's business news desk. Before that, she spent four years on the tech team, covering the consumer tech world and later serving as Insider's tech editor. Before joining Insider, she covered startups for the Pittsburgh Business Times. She has a degree in journalism from Syracuse University. You can contact her at ahartmans@bjinnox.com.