It's been written on the wall for a while, but now US network operator Verizon has confirmed its acquisition of Yahoo in a deal worth $4.48 billion. This also means that Yahoo's online image sharing platform Flickr is now in the hands of Verizon. With both AOL and Yahoo now owned by Verizon it seems the network giant is planning to combine the two companies and a few of its other subsidiaries into a new service called Oath.

“We’re putting together one of the largest companies on the planet that’s focused on brands,” says Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL. “Oath is our house of 50+ media and technology brands. We reach over 1 billion consumers around the world.”

In the process of merging Yahoo and AOL 2,100 employees will be made redundant but Flickr users should, at least in the short term, not expect any major changes to the service as Verizon says it has no immediate plans to change Flickr pricing.

It appears the Oath service has been structured to compete with other major ad platforms, such as Facebook or Google but it remains to be seen what the move will mean for Flickr. Under Yahoo ownership the service has not necessarily been developed in a way that users and photographers would have liked. We'll have to wait and see if Verizon and Oath can increase the rate of innovation at Flickr and bring the site back to its former glory.