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The company first confirmed plans to change its name in October 2020.

Bot mitigation firm White Ops has confirmed plans to change its name to Human, which it says more authentically reflects the company’s values, its employees, and communities it protects.

Plans for a name change were first announced in October 2020, when co-founder and CEO Tamer Hassan published a blog post stating the name White Ops no longer represented the values of its employees and overall mission.

“The name White Ops represents something different than what we’ve intended,” Hassan wrote last fall. “It perpetuates a toxic association of good and bad with color and race. For these reasons we have decided to change the name of the company.”

At the time, officials didn’t yet know what the new name would be. In the following months, Hassan says, they considered thousands of possible names, did a deep dive on hundreds, and sought feedback from customers, partners, and analysts. They kept coming back to Human, a name they say reflects its commitment to equality and diversity, as well as its corporate goals.

In a new blog post published this week, Hassan explains how in the past decade, employees have seen advanced human-like bots designed to take over accounts, manipulate popularity, steal sensitive data, interact with advertising, and steal goods and services.

“It represents what we are here to do: protect the integrity of the Internet and our customers from bot attacks to keep digital experiences human,” he said in a statement.

The name change arrives a few months after White Ops confirmed its acquisition by Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division, in partnership with ClearSky Security and NightDragon.  

Read the full release and Hassan’s blog post for more details.

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