“It would be a hassle,” Sage said. He would have to move hundreds of contacts to another email service and notify them of his new address, and “I don’t have time for that.”
Indeed, Yahoo hasn’t seen a major impact on traffic after it disclosed two huge data breaches last year, according to Verto Analytics, which measured mobile and Web traffic on Yahoo sites. One breach, disclosed in mid-December, affected more than 1 billion accounts in 2013. The other, made public in September, impacted at least 500 million accounts in 2014.
“We do not believe the news about the data breach affected Yahoo’s user base or traffic significantly,” said Verto CEO Hannu Verkasalo in an email. “It certainly has affected Yahoo’s brand value, but we need to remember that most of today’s Yahoo users have used Yahoo services for many years.”
The Sunnyvale company had nearly 45.7 million users on its services on Sept. 1, several weeks before the company publicly disclosed the 2014 data breach, and it stayed roughly steady despite the announcement. On Dec. 26, the most recent data available and nearly two weeks after Yahoo announced the 2013 breach, the number of users was 38.5 million. Traffic overall was down in mid-to-late December in the range of high 30 million to low 40 million. Verto said the cause could be seasonal, with people not going online as often during the holidays.
The number of Yahoo users increased on Dec. 14, when the company announced the 2013 data breach. That probably occurred as users went online to change their passwords, said Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights and Strategy.
In October, Yahoo said that user engagement remained about the same or improved on some of its core services after its September disclosure of the 2014 data breach.
“We’re working hard to retain their trust, and are heartened by their continued loyalty,” Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a statement at the time.
The company declined to comment on Verto’s report or share new user data.
Yahoo has been working toward selling its Internet properties to Verizon for $4.8 billion. Some analysts believe that Verizon may use the security breaches as leverage to negotiate a lower price. One reason Verizon was interested in buying Yahoo was because of its large customer base of more than 1 billion users across on all of its services, analysts said.
Verizon declined to comment for this story. “We will continue to evaluate the situation before making any final decisions,” the company said.
“We are confident in Yahoo’s value and we continue to work toward integration with Verizon,” Yahoo said.
Some analysts believe many Yahoo users will stick with the company because they are longtime users, and it’s hard to get people to switch unless there is a compelling reason, like a much better service. In the 2013 Yahoo data breach — believed to be the largest in the country — some users had their security answers and passwords stolen, which could affect their accounts elsewhere. Yahoo said it did not believe that any credit card information was taken.
Derek Wing, a 44-year-old resident of Washington state, said he plans to continue using his Yahoo email account. He views the data breaches as “more of a nuisance than a danger.”
“It’s somewhat alarming, but I don’t think it’s enough to make me switch,” Wing said. “Old habits die hard.”
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