Yahoo reaches $117.5 million settlement in huge data breach
San Francisco - Nearly 200 million people who had sensitive information snatched from their Yahoo accounts will receive two years of free credit-monitoring services and other potential restitution in a legal settlement valued at $117.5 million. The deal disclosed in documents filed Tuesday revises an earlier agreement that was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh. The value of that settlement had been pegged at $50 million, but Koh questioned the calculations.
A more detailed breakdown used in the revised settlement drove up the estimated cost. The money will be paid by Yahoo's current owner, Verizon, and Alibaba, a holdover from Yahoo's past.
If approved, the settlement will become part of the financial fallout from digital burglaries that stole personal information from about 3 billion Yahoo accounts in 2013 and 2014.
In April 2018, Yahoo agree to pay a $35 million fine to resolve federal regulators' charges that the online pioneer deceived investors by failing to disclose those breaches, among the biggest in internet history. The SEC alleged that although Yahoo senior managers and attorneys were told about the breach, the company failed to fully investigate it. The agency said the breach wasn't disclosed to investors until more than two years later, when Yahoo was working on closing Verizon's acquisition of its operating business in 2016.
