Yahoo announced that Yahoo Small Business is being rebranded as Luminate, and will belong to a new company called Aabaco Small Business, LLC, which is currently owned by Yahoo, but will become owned by Aabaco Holdings, Inc. when Aabaco is spun off from Yahoo to its shareholders. The spin-off was announced last month when Yahoo announced its SEC filing for spinning off its remaining stake in Alibaba Group.
Yahoo Small Business says the move will lead to a “sharper focus” on small business. It says it plans to make key investments in infrastructure and organization to improve and broaden its small business solutions. This, it adds, will lead to more support and more ways ways for customers to grow their businesses.
As Search Engine Roundtable points out, Yahoo has been emailing Yahoo Small Business customers about the change.
The terms of service and privacy policy are getting updated as a result of the changes.
The company tells business owners, “For now, please review the new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which will become effective when the spin-off is completed. We’ve simplified everything, made it 100% focused on small business services, and replaced old names with new. In some cases, you may need to make minor changes (like if you have a domain hosted by a company other than Yahoo), and we will be communicating those instructions separately. Once the spin-off is complete, you will also be asked to create a new ID and password to access your services.”
Customers will need to keep their Yahoo accounts so they can can continue to access other Yahoo products and services including personal email accounts.
“Business Mail will continue to be powered by Yahoo Mail,” the company says. “The functionality you have today will either remain the same or see improvements. You will have access to past emails sent and retain your sub-account email addresses as you have already set them up. We also anticipate no changes to the way you access your business email mailboxes.”
The separation is expected to happen in Q4. It includes Yahoo Small Business India and Yahoo Small Business Canada.
There are no planned price changes associated with the spin-off.
Image via Yahoo Small Business
