Yahoo to pay US$50 million in data breach damages

A US$50-million payout has been agreed by Yahoo to compensate account owners who may have had their data stolen or compromised during the data breaches that occurred in 2013 and 2014. The agreement still needs to be legally confirmed by the California federal court, but once that happens millions of Yahoo users will be able to make claims against the tech company. This lawsuit is only applicable to the 200 million Yahoo accountholders in the US and Israel who were affected by the breaches; the August 2013 breach is believed to have affected three billion people worldwide.

The deal involves offering US$25 an hour for time lost dealing with the effects of the data breaches to holders of compromised Yahoo accounts. If a user can provide documented evidence of data loss or identity theft, then that person can claim up to US$375 (15 hours). Those without thorough evidence can still make a claim, but the amount drops to a limit of US$125 (five hours). Yahoo will also pay for two years worth of free credit-monitoring services for accountholders, which will be provided by AllClear.

The US$50 million payout will be split between Yahoo’s parent company Verizon and Altaba Inc., which is an investment firm that was created from Verizon’s US$4.48 billion acquisition of the web service provider in 2017. The breaches caused Verizon to shave US$350 million off the original offer of US$4.8 billion, and it’s likely the financial consequences of the hacks will be ongoing for some time yet. Yahoo took two years to disclose the breaches, a move that has been justly criticized.

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