Verizon reportedly wants a $1 billion discount on Yahoo deal because of the huge hacking scandal

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Tim Armstrong

Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

Verizon is asking for a $1 billion discount on the Yahoo acquisition deal, after learning about the massive data breach last month, according to the New York Post's Claire Atkinson.

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The Post's report, citing "several sources," says AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is "pretty upset" about Yahoo's lack of disclosure about the hack, and is even questioning if there's a way to pull out of the deal entirely.

The report says that Verizon believes Yahoo's value has been "diminished," while Yahoo has pushed against the idea of a discount.

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Verizon said it was given a two-day notice before the public learned about the data breach in September, nearly two months after it acquired Yahoo for $4.8 billion.

The hack, which is believed to have stolen at least 500 million Yahoo user info, could be the largest in history.

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Earlier this week, Yahoo was also found to have secretly worked with the US government to scan millions of user emails, according to Reuters. It's unclear exactly what kind of data, if any, Yahoo may have handed over to US government officials.

Armstrong hasn't said anything negative about Yahoo in public so far and stressed that the integration is working smoothly in a recent interview with Business Insider's Lara O'Reilly.

"I think people knew the businesses were similar, but I think it's more similar. I think what I mean by that is that Yahoo is going through a turnaround and a lot of that work and strategy is similar to what AOL did when we were turning around the company. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there for us to speed up on both sides," Armstrong said.

Yahoo declined to comment on this story.

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