AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File
- House Republicans warned Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer not to comply with January riot-related-records requests.
- But Mayer hasn’t been CEO of the telecom giant since 2017.
- Verizon Media – which includes Yahoo – was sold to a private-equity firm this year. Its CEO is Guru Gowrappan.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
House Republicans wrote a letter to Marissa Mayer – who they described as “President and Chief Executive Officer” of Yahoo – warning her of legal action should the company hand over private data to a committee investigating the January 6 riot.
However, Mayer hasn’t been CEO of Yahoo since 2017, when she resigned after spending five years attempting to pull the media giant back from a steady demise. She also stepped down from the company’s board and now runs a startup called Lumi Labs.
The letter is one of 13 that GOP congressional leaders sent to telecommunication giants, threatening “legal remedies” should they comply with the House Select Committee, which is investigating the early January insurrection at the US Capitol.
-Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) September 3, 2021
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and other big tech power players also received the letters, according to Congressman Andy Biggs’ office, one of the letter’s signees.
The House in June green-lit a plan to create a partisan select committee specifically to dig into the happenings of the January attack, which led to the deaths of five people. The group asked 35 telecom and social media companies to preserve the phone records and data of some individuals – including members of the Trump family and those charged in connection with the riot – in regard to the events of that day.
The Republican architects of these new letters say that would violate federal law and “would put every American with a phone or computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democrat politicians,” House Minority Leader Kein McCarthy said last week.
Many of the letter’s signees, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia could be among those whose records might be requested, CNN reported.
Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017 and merged it with AOL, rebranding the pair as Oath, with Alibaba alum Guru Gowrappan serving as CEO.
Oath would later be called Verizon Media, and just this year, it was announced that the company – which includes Yahoo, AOL, and tech news publication TechCrunch – was being sold to private-equity firm Apollo Global Management. Gowrappan will remain CEO of the entity, Business Insider previously reported.
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