Yahoo Class Action Says Tech Company Reckless With User Accounts

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A California woman is adding her Yahoo class action lawsuit to the litigation over a Yahoo data breach that exposed millions of users’ personal information.

Plaintiff Michelle Bouras claims Yahoo “recklessly and negligently disregarded its obligations to safeguard its users’ [personally identifiable information]” in late 2014, when by Yahoo’s own admission hackers got access to the account information of at least 500 million users.

The company announced the Yahoo data breach in a September 2016 press release. Yahoo says it believes the hack was committed by a “state-sponsored actor.”

According to Yahoo, user information exposed in the Yahoo data breach may include first and last names, dates of birth, telephone numbers, email addresses, hashed passwords, and in some cases encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.

Bouras adds that answers to user security questions often contain the user’s place of birth or mother’s maiden name.

So far, the company has announced the Yahoo data breach and recommended users take steps to prevent unauthorized access to their Yahoo accounts. But Bouras says Yahoo has failed to offer any remedial measures for affected users.

“To date, Defendant Yahoo has not offered Plaintiff and Class members any compensation from the past, present, and future harm they may experience as a result of the Data Breach,” Bouras says. “Defendant Yahoo has not offered any form of credit monitoring services, and has therefore failed to protect Plaintiff and Class members against fraud and identity theft which may occur as a result of the Data Breach.”

Bouras claims the Yahoo data breach exposed her and the proposed Class Members to “an increased, imminent risk of fraud and identity theft, and loss of value of their [personally identifiable information].”

She is raising claims for violation of California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law, Customer Records Act, and provisions of California common law.

This Yahoo class action lawsuit is not the only one filed in California state court. Bouras is asking the court to combine her case with another Yahoo class action lawsuit already filed by plaintiff Jared Pastor.

Pastor has a petition pending with the Judicial Council of California asking the council to combine related Yahoo data breach claims into a single Judicial Council coordination proceeding, or JCCP.

In her own Yahoo data breach class action lawsuit, Bouras proposes to represent a plaintiff Class consisting of “[a]ll persons who reside in California whose personally identifiable information was acquired by unauthorized persons in the data breach announced by Yahoo in September 2016.”

She seeks a court order requiring Yahoo to immediately secure and encrypt all confidential information and to stop negligently storing such information, to give timely notification to users whose information is wrongly disclosed, and to offer identity theft monitoring to affected users.

She also seeks an award of damages including statutory damages of $1,000 per class member, court costs, attorneys’ fees, and pre- and post-judgment interest.

Bouras is represented by attorney Neil B. Fineman of Fineman Poliner LLP.

The Yahoo Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Michelle Bouras v. Yahoo Inc., Case No. 8:16-cv-01962, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.