Verizon is expected to announce the $4.8B purchase of Yahoo's Internet assets early Monday, ending what has been months of speculation on the future of the online icon.
Verizon was said to be close to a deal for Yahoo's Internet business on Friday, but left the door open for the transaction being canceled. Sunday reports in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News said a deal was all but done.
Verizon is expected to purchase Yahoo's core Internet business and combine it with its AOL unit. Yahoo would keep its stakes in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and in Yahoo Japan.
Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said that if Verizon does close the deal, it will likely trigger a "firestorm" of opposition from consumer groups like his.
"[A]s an already big data-fattened Verizon (AOL, Millennial Media, etc) grabs even more consumer information, [the deal] becomes ground zero in the broadband ISP privacy fight," said Chester.
John Eggerton contributed to this report.
