Glossary

Plain definitions of terms that come up in our coverage. Articles link here the first time a term appears.

• AntitrustLaw that protects competition between companies.
• Buy now, pay later (BNPL)Short-term installment loans offered at checkout.
• Consumer price index (CPI)The government's main measure of consumer inflation.
• CPA (cost per acquisition)Ad spend divided by the number of customers or sales gained.
• CPM (cost per thousand impressions)What an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad views.
• CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures)A public ID for a specific security flaw, written like CVE-2026-12345.
• Federal funds rateThe Federal Reserve's main policy interest rate.
• Form 10-KA U.S. public company's audited annual report to the SEC.
• Form 10-QA U.S. public company's quarterly report to the SEC.
• Form 4An SEC filing that reports trades by company insiders.
• Form 8-KAn SEC filing that reports a major company event between regular reports.
• Form DAn SEC notice filed when a company raises money in a private offering.
• Form S-1The registration statement a company files with the SEC to go public.
• HTS codeThe classification number that sets a product's U.S. import duty.
• Initial public offering (IPO)The first sale of a company's shares to the public.
• Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalogCISA's list of security flaws confirmed to be used by attackers.
• Large language model (LLM)An AI model trained on large amounts of text to read and write language.
• Open-weight modelAn AI model whose trained parameters are published for anyone to download.
• Operating marginOperating income as a share of revenue.
• PhishingMessages that trick people into handing over passwords or installing malware.
• RansomwareMalware that locks or steals data and demands payment.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS)Revenue earned per dollar spent on advertising.
• Supply-chain attackAn attack that reaches victims through software or services they trust.
• TariffA tax on imported goods.
• Venture capitalInvestment in young companies in exchange for equity.
• Year over yearA comparison with the same period a year earlier.
• Zero-dayA flaw attackers exploit before a fix is available.