Wednesday October 22, 2014

• Chinese government backed hackers mounted attacks on Apple? The press (NYT here, Washington Post here) has been agog with reports that Chinese authorities have been involved in a sophisticated cyber-attack on Apple. A sophisticated cyber-attack has targeted Apple’s iCloud service in China, in an apparent attempt to collect user names, passwords and other private information as the company releases its newest round of iPhones in the world’s most populous country. The attack, first reported on Monday by Greatfire.org, an activist group that monitors Internet censorship in China, was confirmed Tuesday by Apple.  The group speculated that China was hoping to collect user names and passwords for iCloud because the newest iPhones will include a strong new form of encryption that governments will have a difficult time cracking, limiting their ability to monitor the communications of its citizens. Google has also reported significantly increased levels of Chinese government interference this year.

• Yahoo shows signs of life; might buy BrightRoll; revenue from Tumblr at $100M/year: Yahoo reported strong third-quarter financial performance on Tuesday, breaking a pattern of revenue declines and posting profits from its core operations that far exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. And mobile, long a bête noire for the company, for the first time contributed meaningfully to its results. Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, told investors that mobile revenue exceeded $200 million in the quarter and she expected it to top $1.2 billion for the full year. Yahoo and its Tumblr unit together had 550 million monthly users on mobile devices during the quarter, up 17 percent from a year ago.Shares of Yahoo rose 1.1 percent to $40.61 in extended trading on Tuesday. For the first time Yahoo disclosed its mobile revenue, which it said was more than $200 million in the third quarter. Yahoo said it expects that gross mobile revenues for the full year will exceed $1.2 billion. We finally have a look at Tumblr’s ad sales: $100 million in 2015. Interesting analysis here, here and here. Separately, Yahoo might buy BrightRoll, a digital video ad service provider, for about $700M.

• After acquisitions in Europe and New Zealand, Zomato now launched in Toronto: Just weeks after announcing its fourth acquisition in three months (in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and New Zealand), Indian restaurant search and discovery service Zomato took its first step into the North American market today. This time, instead of taking the buyout route, Zomato launched in Canada, listing over 11,000 restaurants in the Greater Toronto area on its website as well as mobile apps.