Yahoo cuts 15% of workers; Google's $2.8m bug bounty; NBN's Migration Assurance Policy

Yahoo plans to shed about 15% of its workforce and exit five of its offices as part of a new strategic plan, the company announced on Tuesday.

Yahoo said the plan would include simplifying its product portfolio; investing further in its Mavens (mobile, video, native and social) strategy; and exiting some legacy products such as Games and Smart TV.

The company said that as part of cost-savings efforts, it plans to reduce its workforce by “roughly 15 percent” and exit five offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid and Milan, “subject to local laws and consultation processes”.

By the end of 2016, the company anticipates having about 9000 employees and fewer than 1000 contractors. “This represents a workforce that is roughly 42 percent smaller than it was in 2012 and will result in savings in short-term operating expense of $400 million annually. Yahoo does not take this decision lightly and will make every effort to handle the process with thoughtfulness, transparency, and compassion,” it said.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said: “This is a strong plan calling for bold shifts in products and in resources.

“Our strategic bets in Mavens have enabled us build an entirely new, forward-leaning business of tremendous scale and growth in just three years. The plan announced today builds from that achievement and will dramatically brighten our future and improve our competitiveness, and attractiveness to users, advertisers and partners,” Mayer said.

Maynard Webb, Yahoo’s chairman of the board, said: “The board is committed to the turnaround efforts of the management team and supportive of the plan announced today.”

Google stumps up US$2 million for bug bounties

Google rewarded vulnerability researchers with more than US$2 million (around AU$2.85 million) in 2015 as part of its Security Reward Program, the company has revealed.

The program provides cash rewards to researchers who identify security vulnerabilities in selected Google products.

Last week the company’s Eduardo Vela Nava published a post on the Google Online Security Blog titled ‘Google Security Rewards – 2015 Year in Review’.

“We launched our Vulnerability Reward Program in 2010 because rewarding security researchers for their hard work benefits everyone. These financial rewards help make our services, and the web as a whole, safer and more secure,” Vela Nava wrote.

In 2015, the Security Reward Program provided rewards totalling more than US$2 million (about AU$2.85 million). In those 12 months the program handed out more than 750 individual rewards to more than 300 recipients.

In contrast, in 2014 the program paid a total of more than US$1.5 million (about AU$2.14 million) to vulnerability researchers.

Vela Nava also noted that Google launched its Android Vulnerability Reward Program in June last year, and by the end of 2015 the company had paid more than US$200,000 (about AU$285,090) to researchers for Android-related research.

NBN Migration Assurance Policy

The federal government has released its Migration Assurance Policy for fixed-line NBN services.

The policy features a statement and a framework, both of which can be downloaded here.

As the framework explains, after an area in the NBN’s fixed-line footprint is declared ‘ready for service’, end users and businesses generally have 18 months to migrate services to the NBN or an alternative before any remaining broadband or telephony services on Telstra’s local access networks in those areas are disconnected.

“One of the Australian Government’s priorities for the migration is to ensure that end users experience minimal disruption. However, experience in the initial rollout areas has shown that this has not always been achieved,” the framework says.

It notes that in some cases, issues relating to inconsistent messaging, serviceability challenges and “a lack of clarity around the roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved” have had a negative impact on service continuity.

The Communications Department said that the policy focuses on how to improve the migration process for customers and minimise disruption to their services.

The two documents are lengthy but worth a read for anyone interested in the specific roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders (including nbn co, RSPs and Telstra) throughout the migration process.

Pictured: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, courtesy Yahoo.com.