Geocities Company

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday that it would shut down its GeoCities free Web-hosting service after paying about $3 billion for the unit in 1999. GeoCities isn't accepting new accounts and will close later this year, Yahoo said. GeoCities, Yahoo's second-biggest acquisition behind Broadcast.com Inc., lets users design personal websites to show off photos, promote local clubs or publicize business services.

It was a day at the beach for GeoCities, the Santa Monica-based Internet firm whose shares more than doubled in their first day of trading Tuesday despite major stock market declines. In one of the most anticipated initial public offerings of the summer, GeoCities closed at $37.31 per share, 119% above its $17 offering price and 13% above the $33 bid that opened public trading on Nasdaq. The shares dipped as low as $30.25 in the early going and later rose as high as $39.

Robert Greenberg isn't waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's in the middle of structuring a first-time stock offering for the second hip shoe company he has founded in the last two decades. Manhattan Beach-based Skechers USA Inc., the shoemaker he co-founded in 1992 with his son Michael, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, or IPO, of as much as $115 million through BT Alex. Brown & Sons. Greenberg helped start L.A.

In a groundbreaking case that strikes at the heart of consumers' growing fears about online privacy, GeoCities settled government charges Thursday that it collected personal information about its customers, including children, then sold the data to marketers in violation of its own stated privacy policies. The case marks the first time government regulators have formally accused any site on the Internet, let alone one as popular as GeoCities with its 2 million members, of such deception.

Despite recent jitters on Wall Street, GeoCities raised the price for its initial public stock offering to $17--more than 20% above the original estimate. The Santa Monica firm, which gives free World Wide Web home pages to about 2 million "homesteaders" and makes money by selling advertising on those pages, originally planned to go public at between $12 and $14.

GeoCities, which runs advertising-supported Internet "communities," filed plans Friday to go public, a day after agreeing to settle federal charges about the way it collects and uses personal information on children. The widely anticipated initial public offering comes amid booming demand for Internet stocks. The sale could raise as much as $72.5 million, the company said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, without specifying the number of shares to be sold or the price.

Putting the finishing touches on a management team that could engineer an initial public offering later this year, Santa Monica-based GeoCities on Tuesday named U.S. News & World Report President and Publisher Thomas R. Evans its chief executive officer. Evans, 43, will replace David Bohnett, who will remain as chairman of the board. Bohnett, who founded GeoCities in 1994, will work on long-range growth plans for the firm.

In their push to reach mass audiences, large Web site operators are developing dynamic "group publishing" software that has caught the attention of tens of thousands of families, hobbyists, clubs, civic groups and small businesses. The trend is taking vanity publishing to a new level, letting people create private virtual worlds--interactive forums where friends and family can chat, post messages and share calendars and address books.

Santa Monica-based GeoCities, a provider of World Wide Web home pages, said it will provide tools to allow its 1.4 million members to build electronic storefronts. It said the new service, dubbed GeoShops, which capitalizes on partnerships with transaction service provider Internet Commerce Services and software maker OpenMarket, will help it further tap into the fast-growing electronic commerce market.

Santa Monica-based Internet service provider GeoCities said that Yahoo Inc. will purchase $5 million in GeoCities stock as part of a deal that will integrate their services. Santa Clara-based search engine Yahoo would give its registered members the option of using GeoCities' publishing tools to build a Web site in one of GeoCities' 40 themed communities. GeoCities in turn would provide links to Yahoo content.