Origins After leaving
PepsiCo, Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie launched c/net, a 24-hour cable network about computers and technology in 1992. With help from
Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and former Disney creative associate Dan Baker, CNET produced four pilot television programs about computers, technology, and the Internet.
CNET TV was composed of
CNET Central,
The Web, and
The New Edge.
CNET Central was created first and aired in
syndication in the
United States on the
USA Network. Later, it began airing on USA's sister network
Sci-Fi Channel along with
The Web and
The New Edge. and doing various voice-over work for CNET. CNET online launched in June 1995. In 1998, CNET, Inc. was sued by Snap Technologies, operators of the education service CollegeEdge, for
trademark infringement relating to CNET, Inc.'s ownership of the domain name Snap.com, due to Snap Technologies
already owning a trademark on its name. CNET produced another television technology news program called
News.com that aired on
CNBC beginning in 1999.
Acquisitions and expansions In July 1999, CNET, Inc. acquired the
Swiss-based company GDT, later renamed to CNET Channel. In 1998, CNET, Inc. granted the right to Asiacontent.com to set up CNET Asia and the operation was brought back in December 2000. In January 2000, the same time CNET, Inc. became CNET Networks, it acquired comparison shopping site mySimon for $736 million. In October 2000, CNET Networks acquired
ZDNET for approximately $1.6 billion. In January 2001,
Ziff Davis reached an agreement with CNET Networks to regain the URLs lost in the 2000 sale of Ziff Davis to
SoftBank, a publicly traded Japanese media and technology company. In April 2001, CNET acquired
TechRepublic, which provides content for IT professionals from
Gartner, for $23 million in cash and stock. In May 2002, CNET Networks acquired Smartshop, an automated product catalog and feature comparison technology company, for an undisclosed amount. On July 14, 2004, CNET Networks announced that it would acquire photography website
Webshots for $70 million ($60 million in cash, $10 million in deferred consideration), completing the acquisition that same month. In October 2007, it sold Webshots to
American Greetings for $45 million. In August 2005, CNET Networks acquired
Metacritic, a
review aggregation website, for an undisclosed amount. In 2005, Google representatives refused to be interviewed by all CNET reporters for a year after CNET published Google's CEO
Eric Schmidt's salary and named the neighborhood where he lives, as well as some of his hobbies and political donations. All the information had been gleaned from Google searches. In September 2006, CNET acquired
Chowhound, an online food community. On October 10, 2006, Shelby Bonnie resigned as chairman and
CEO, in addition to two other executives, as a result of a
stock options backdating scandal that occurred between 1996 and 2003. This would also cause the firm to restate its financial earnings over 1996 to 2003 for over $105 million in resulting expenses. The
Securities and Exchange Commission later dropped an investigation into the practice. Neil Ashe was named as the new CEO. In December 2006,
James Kim, an editor at CNET, died in the Oregon wilderness. CNET hosted a memorial show and podcasts dedicated to him. On March 1, 2007, CNET announced the public launch of
BNET, a website targeted towards business managers. BNET had been running under beta status since 2005. In 2008 programmer
Chris Wanstrath, who worked on GameSpot and Chowhound, left CNET to start
GitHub.
CBS Corporation ownership On May 15, 2008, it was announced that
CBS Corporation would buy CNET Networks for
US$ 1.8 billion. On June 30, 2008, the acquisition was completed. Former CNET Networks properties were managed under
CBS Interactive at the time. CBS Interactive acquired many
domain names originally created by CNET Networks, including
download.com, downloads.com, upload.com, news.com, search.com,
TV.com,
mp3.com, chat.com, computers.com, shopper.com, com.com, and cnet.com. It also held
radio.com until
CBS Radio was sold to
Entercom in 2017. In 2011, CNET and CBS Interactive were sued by a coalition of artists (led by FilmOn founder Alki David) for
copyright infringement by promoting the download of
LimeWire, a popular
peer to peer downloading software. Although the original suit was voluntarily dropped by Alki David, he vowed to sue at a later date to bring "expanded" action against CBS Interactive. In November 2011, another lawsuit against CBS Interactive was introduced, claiming that CNET and CBS Interactive knowingly distributed LimeWire. On September 19, 2013, CBS Interactive launched a
Spanish language sister site under the name CNET en Español. It focuses on topics of relevance primarily to Spanish-speaking technology enthusiasts. The site offered a "new perspective" on technology and is under the leadership of managing editor Gabriel Sama. The site not only offered news and tutorials, but also had a robust reviews section that it was led by Juan Garzon. After Red Ventures' acquisition, the company announced the closing of CNET en Español on November 11, 2020, leaving the largest tech site in Spanish in the US out of the market. In March 2014, CNET refreshed its site by merging with CNET UK and vowing to merge all editions of the agency into a unified agency. This merge brought many changes, foremost of which would be a new user interface and the renaming of CNET TV as CNET Video.
Red Ventures ownership Red Ventures announced in September 2020 that it would acquire CNET from
ViacomCBS for $500 million. The transaction was completed on October 30, 2020. In November 2022, CNET began publishing articles written with
artificial intelligence and edited by humans. CNET was criticized for failing to disclose that it was using a machine to write articles, and for using human bylines on some AI-generated content until caught by independent investigators. CNET reviewed those articles in January 2023 after many were found to contain serious errors and plagiarized material. CNET reporters said Red Ventures pushed them to give more favourable coverage to advertisers and work on sponsored content. Subsequently, 10% of CNET staff were laid off. A former staffer demanded that her byline be removed from the site, in order to protect her reputation if her articles were revised by AI. In August 2023, CNET had deleted thousands of old articles from their website in an effort to raise the
search engine optimization rankings on
Google Search. Before an article is deleted on its website, CNET creates an internal copy and another to
Wayback Machine. The writer, if still employed by CNET, is also alerted 10 days in advance.
Google said deleting articles to optimize for search engine rankings is not a good practice. The approximate halving of CNET's value under Red Ventures' ownership is attributed to interest rates, a slower ad market, and the reputational damage to CNET caused by the AI scandals. On August 6, 2024, the
New York Times reported that Red Ventures had reached an agreement to sell CNET to
Ziff Davis for $100 million, subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition was completed in the third quarter of 2024. == Websites ==