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Outline of Inconsistency in Communication in Yahoo
Andrew Fields
Institutional Affiliation
Outline of Inconsistency in Communication in Yahoo
Tim Hibsman
19\08\2022
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Inconsistency in Communication in Yahoo
1. Description of Yahoo Company
Yahoo is a very famous American web service provider. The headquarters of this
company is in Sunnyvale, California. The company is also operated majorly by its namesake
company, Yahoo.inc.,. Yahoo. Inc is 90% owned by investment funds that are managed by
Apollo Global Management. The remaining 10% is managed by Verizon Communication.
The company offers a search engine, web portal and other relatable services, including Yahoo
Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Mail etc. Founded by David Filo and Jerry Young in early
January 1994, the company was among the pioneers of the early eras of the internet (the
1990s). However, the company later on, lost a significant portion of its market share
following the introduction of Google and Facebook in the late 2000s.
In late 2016, the leadership of the company acknowledged that the company suffered
a data breach in 2014. This breach exposed the accounts of more than 500 million users to
global hackers. Three months after the breach, Yahoo announced that it had experienced
earlier on from 2013 that tampered with almost one billion user accounts. Almost a year later,
in late October 2017, the company announced again that the earlier mentioned data breach
had actually affected all three billion of its customers.
The way this a business communication failure? Not communicating on time. It later
turned out that Yahoo insiders knew about all these breaches by the time they happened but
instead kept the whole issue under wraps in hopes of a successful concealing.
2. Context factors
Successful businesses are built on utmost transparency and honesty. Whenever
something goes wrong, identifying the issue and seeking an immediate solution is always the
best way out. By deciding to keep this information a secret from the outside forces, Yahoo did
portray not only poor business communication but also unorganized and poor risk
management. Running a business, industry, or company often means running a sack of risks.
All companies need to have a well-planned risk management framework in place to always
come in handy in times of threat. Every 39 seconds, data is breached. These are major risks
that a big technology company like Yahoo knew and should have prepared for in advance.
Yahoo's internal investigations found that their failure in communication, proper
management, internal reporting, and inquiries led to the lack of good comprehension and
handling of their security incident of 2014. By inconsistently communicating or choosing not
to address the crisis with customers and internal stakeholders, the subsequent effects became
bigger than earlier on presumed.
3. Consultant Background
Yahoo incurred a data breach in 2013 and 2014 that saw three billion of their global
users' personal data exposed to hackers. The hackers demanded a ransom before returning the
data back to the company. Coincidentally, Yahoo kept silent with this information until later
on, when it erupted to the public. A follow-up indicated that the top management body had
this information all along from when the breach happened but instead failed to publicly
communicate the issue to other stakeholders.
4. Primary Research Methodology
Inconsistency of communication in any workplace is easily visible from employees'
conduct to how important information is transmitted from the senior staff down to the junior
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staff. Yahoo incurred data breaches in 2013 and 2014 (Daswani & Elbayadi, 2021). However,
this information was kept private until later despite the internal forces being aware. For this
research, the methodology that best suits the gathering of necessary data includes an online
survey and literature review.
i. Communication theory the company will use
The most appropriate communication theory that best suits this study is the open system
theory of communication. Yahoo did not go transparent with their communication on the
breach of data until later, when they could no longer keep the issue a secret. Despite all these,
their senior officials knew the issue but barred it from getting to the junior staff. With the
open system theory of communication, all the relevant exchange of communication between
an institution and its surrounding as well as between different networks of a company's
subsystem are channeled to all the relevant bodies and parties involved (Volkova et al., 2019).
With this theory, communication can hardly get conceptualized independently as a process of
channeling messages between receivers and senders. Per this theory, communication can only
be understood in relation to the subsequent social systems in which they take place. It is best
applicable to be used for this study as it can help determine the correct alternative channel
that should have instead been followed to help achieve the most transparent information
concerning the data breach and the security of the millions of users whose accounts were
exposed to potential hackers.
5. Literature Review
Yahoo underwent a data breach crisis that was marked as the largest to ever happen to
a technological company, according to the reports. It was reported to have exposed more than
five hundred million of its users’ personal details to hackers. From names to encrypted
passwords, date of birth, email addresses and telephone numbers, just to mention a few, this
breach placed a significant threat to the company. Yahoo termed this invasion as a “state-
sponsored actor.”
While there was no clear evidence that suggested any payment details for the breach,
it seemed like the company had been earlier informed of the breach by the people who
hacked their system way back following their ransom demand in exchange for returning the
details. This situation prompted questions about Yahoo's safety service and whether it was
suitable for such a big company (Kolevski et al., 2021).
This research investigates how such a high-level breach was possible and the
competency of the brand following that incident. Undoubtedly, this revelation did not come at
the most appropriate time for the company, which was, at the moment, undergoing a takeover
worth $4.83 billion by Verizon.
Yahoo has continuously faced regular questions regarding their clients' privacy but
has not directly addressed these issues for reasons that are best known to them. For that
matter, Forbes has warned people against visiting the website for fear of a data breach.
However, despite the discouragements, Yahoo has received millions of users visiting its
platform annually. Statistics indicate that despite the modern competition and loss of clients,
this company get almost seven billion views every month, thus, making it the fifth most
visited site globally.
In addition to that, Yahoo went ahead and hired the former executive director of
Google, Mr. Henrique de Castro. Most market analysts described this hiring as an expensive
mistake as they felt that Castro was a wrong fit for that position. It seems that Castro was
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selected for his brilliance. However, he also failed to connect with his staff and the
advertisers that the company was trying to lure at that moment. Information from Castro's
former colleagues also described him as a smart guy but with communication issues
(Daswani & Elbayadi, 2021). Some also described him as an arrogant man with abrasive
characteristics. Once again, this aspect reminds us of the crucial role that good
communication plays in leadership.
6. Research Question
What effects does inconsistency in communication has on a company?
7. Data collection and analysis
This research intends to review the literature and carry out an online analysis to help
collect data on the inconsistency of communication in Yahoo company. This being a past
issue, the already available data from publications might be beneficial in gathering
information on the extent caused by inconsistent communication to all relevant parties
following the data breach that exposed millions of global yahoo users to hackers. Through
reviewing all relevant and available literature, the researchers will collect all possible reasons
given as to why that miscommunication happened and note them down (Kolevski et al.,
2021). They would then identify the reasons why the top management kept the information a
secret despite learning of it in advance and being in the capacity to act.
Besides the literature review, the researchers will also apply an online analysis to
identify the cause of inconsistent communication that left all the external parties in the dark.
Available online analysis indicates that the real number of data breached was actually 3
billion, the entire user base of the company, unlike the earlier said figures. This uncertainty of
real data adds to the inconsistent communication from the company, thus, jeopardizing
customer and investor trust in the company. It also encourages mistrust among staff members,
especially between the senior and the junior staff, who are likely to be torn about what to
believe (Cooper et al., 2019). The company's internal investigation also discovered a failure
in management, communication, internal reporting and inquiry as other key factors that led to
the improper comprehension and handling of their 2014 security incident. By not addressing
the issue with its customers, stakeholders and other partner companies, Yahoo incurred some
of its biggest ever losses since its establishment.
After collecting data, the research intends to analyze them using regression analysis.
This analysis method is significantly reliable when identifying the variables that have a
substantial impact on any topic of interest. For our case, the topic of interest is the
inconsistency of communication in the Yahoo company. This method will allow researchers
to easily and accurately determine the factors that matter the most, those that could be
ignored and how the listed factors influence each other (Shen et al., 2021). This analysis will
allow them to understand the different reasons that led to that communication inconsistency
and why the victims decided to act the way they did.
8. Client Deliverables
This research will deliver a report on the great communication inconsistency
witnessed at Yahoo company. The company incurred a data breach that exposed billions of
personal data to hackers. Instead of acting immediately, the management kept it a secret until
later, when the information erupted to the public. The project identifies the people involved in
the saga and how their actions negatively impacted the organization. In addition to that, this
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research also delivers on the importance of having a disaster management team in case of
such occurrences.
9. Project Problems
Some of the key problems that this project is likely to incur include inadequate
research resources to allow for an extensive collection of data. Some of the crucially
important information regarding this saga is protected in the Yahoo domain, and trying to
access them might raise alarms. Besides being clear that communication inconsistency was a
key issue in the breaching of data, some details of what happened are not available. The
information provided in this case is shallow despite being available across most website
platforms. Therefore, the limited information may also hinder an exhaustive and more
detailed study concerning the effects of the inconsistency of communication on a company, as
witnessed in Yahoo company in 2013 and 2014 (Webster, 2021).
10. Conclusion
Inconsistency of communication is the start of problems in any organization. This
issue mainly happens when the communication between the top management staff and the
junior staff passes through channels or is dictated by specific groups. A clear example was
demonstrated by Yahoo following a data breach that they further kept a secret. The eruption
of the issue led to a significant profit loss and even threatened to kill the whole company.
Consistency of communication is key to successful business operations.
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Part II: Plan of action
Question 1
For someone outside of the field, it is essential to let them first understand communication
and its importance in any organization. You should then explain to that individual the
different channels information passes through before reaching the junior most member of a
company or an organization. Once they understand that aspect, you can then explain to them
that the success of any execution depends on the accuracy of how the information reaches the
desired people. Once these people understand how crucial communication is, you can then
easily explain what would be inconsistent communication, especially in a company where
other staff depend on a communication channel to get informed.
Question 2
Proving that the problem exists can be done through the presentation of already available
pieces of evidence extracted from the internet or earlier studies. There are several cases of
inconsistent communication in companies and how those factors have led to downfalls.
Presenting such arguments might help prove that this problem exists. Mutual understanding
and encouraging transparency might be a solution to this problem. When the leadership team
comes together and decides to adhere to the organisation's rules, such issues are highly likely
to be evaded.
Question 3
Continuous analysis of company performance can reveal a thing or two about a company.
With daily technological advancements and the introduction of other competing companies, it
is possible to find other topics of interest concerning the inconsistency of communication in a
and their effects on the specific companies; thus, probable location of other researches to
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support this project. Deeper digging into available studies and what customers say about a
company can also be a great source of supportive information.
References
Cooper, B. F., Narayan, P. P. S., Ramakrishnan, R., Srivastava, U., Silberstein, A., Bohannon,
P., ... & Yerneni, R. (2019). PNUTS to Sherpa: lessons from Yahoo!'s cloud
database. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 12(12), 2300-2307.
Daswani, N., & Elbayadi, M. (2021). The Yahoo Breaches of 2013 and 2014. In Big
Breaches (pp. 155-169). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Kolevski, D., Michael, K., Abbas, R., & Freeman, M. (2021, July). Cloud Data Breach
Disclosures: the Consumer and their Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In
2021 IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW) (pp. 1-9).
IEEE.
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Shen, K., Wang, C., Guo, M., Zheng, X., Lu, C., Liu, B., ... & Yang, M. (2021). Weak links in
authentication chains: A large-scale analysis of email sender spoofing attacks. In 30th
USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 21) (pp. 3201-3217).
Volkova, V., Leonova, A., Loginova, A., & Chernyy, Y. (2019, October). System analysis of
the development of information-communication technologies. In Proceedings of the
XI International Scientific Conference Communicative Strategies of the Information
Society (pp. 1-6).
Webster, N. (2021). Whose Data Anyway? The Inconsistent and Prejudicial Application of
Ascertainability in Data Privacy Class Actions, by Nathan Webster here.
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