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Yahoo has rebuilt Yahoo Search to run on Scout, its AI answer engine that had been in beta since January, ending a search arrangement with Microsoft Bing that dated back to August 2010. Eric Feng, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo Research Group, described it as the biggest update to Yahoo Search in years, and said Scout is also being extended across Yahoo's other products.
A commentary piece draws a parallel between today's enterprise AI landscape and the pre-Google search market of the late 1990s, when engines like AltaVista and portals like Yahoo! competed mainly on capturing user attention for advertising. The author argues current enterprise AI is built on rented foundation models rather than proprietary intelligence, and calls for a breakthrough akin to Google's PageRank that would let companies own their AI advantage rather than lease it.
Security researcher John Tuckner of Socket documented 319 Chrome extensions, collectively installed 13.4 million times, that silently override users' default search engine and reroute queries through proxy servers before landing on Bing or Yahoo. This builds on his April 2025 finding of 57 such extensions with 6 million users, adding 264 newly identified ones covering another 8.7 million installs. The extensions masquerade as PDF converters, search tools, and similar utilities, and are unlisted on the Chrome Web Store, spreading instead through ads on other websites.
Marissa Mayer, former Yahoo CEO, shared an anecdote describing how she used artificial intelligence to help navigate a parenting moment, intending to demonstrate capabilities of her new startup. The post drew strong negative reactions on social media, with many users expressing discomfort at the idea of outsourcing personal, emotional parenting moments to an AI tool.
Google is updating Search's AI Mode so it can act as a fantasy football advisor by connecting to Yahoo Fantasy or Sleeper accounts, offering lineup suggestions and free-agent picks based on a user's roster and league. The company is also rolling out a 'Live Game Feed' that shows scores, recaps, play-by-play updates and video highlights when users search for ongoing games, plus carousels for league scores, player stats, win odds and bracket matchups.
Google is rolling out a Live Game Feed in mobile Search that shows play-by-play updates, social commentary, video highlights and AI-generated insights for NFL games, starting with tonight's season opener. Search is also getting a scores carousel and expanded player stats covering categories like passing touchdowns, sacks and yards after catch. Users can now link Yahoo Fantasy or Sleeper accounts to get AI-based lineup suggestions without manually entering data.
Google has announced that starting January 2027, Gmail's 'Send as' feature will no longer support external email addresses like those from Yahoo or Outlook. The change won't affect Google Workspace aliases or other Gmail-owned addresses, only third-party accounts linked through SMTP.
The Washington Post reports that private conversations users have had with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude are increasingly surfacing as evidence in court proceedings. In one case, a financial executive facing federal fraud charges tried to shield his Claude conversations from prosecutors, but a judge ruled that attorney-client privilege did not apply since the chatbot is not a lawyer and his own attorneys hadn't directed him to use it.