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Yahoo! tries! again! with! 3 billion! email! account! theft! payout!
$7,500 compensation up for grabs if you're the right victim
The remnants of internet giant Yahoo! are once again in court with hopes of settling the case over their massive 2013 hack that saw every single one of its three billion email accounts pwned.
The company, once known as Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web, has submitted a revised settlement package [PDF] to Judge Lucy Koh in the California Northern US District Court. The settlement, if accepted, would apply to Yahoo's small business and personal email account holders in the US and Israel.
Back in January Koh struck down Yahoo's first proposed settlement package, ruling that too much of the payout was being earmarked for attorneys, rather than the three billion customers who had their data fall into the hands of hackers.
While Yahoo! has since been broken up into the brands Altaba and Oath, for the sake of this case the two companies are jointly represented under the Yahoo! banner.
Let's talk about cash, baby
The revised settlement would see Yahoo! agree to pay $117.5m to cover damages as well as credit monitoring for any of the class action members. Another $30m will be earmarked to cover attorney fees, down from $35m in the ill-fated first settlement attempt.
The named plaintiffs in the case, who represented 896 million of Yahoo's personal and small business email customers exposed in the hack, will be able to claim up to $7,500 for themselves. Everyone else will have to settle for two years of credit monitoring or a one-time cash payout.
For paid and small business accounts, the payout could be as high as $500, or 25 per cent of what they paid for their Yahoo! email service between 2012 and 2016. Free email customers that don't want credit monitoring (or already bought their own) can instead claim a $100 payout.
In making the case for the settlement, Yahoo! notes that the cost of the credit monitoring service over two years will exceed the cash payout, and there is no limit on how many customers will be able to enroll.
"Importantly, the Credit Monitoring Services are not capped at any enrollment number; hence, if all 196 million Class Members enroll, all will be covered for $24 million — shifting the risk of greater than historically anticipated enrollment to the vendor rather than the Settlement Fund."
Should Koh ultimately sign off on the settlement, it would join other payouts Yahoo inked to settle the SEC and California State court cases. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
