Yahoo, currently owned by Verizon, agreed to pay $ 117.5 million as part of a collective litigation settlement stemming from a series of breakthroughs in 2013 that affected three billion people, the number of users of its full services at the time.
If you had a Yahoo account during that time, you may have already received an email this week telling you that you may be eligible for up to $ 100 in compensation for this violation. The deadline for submitting claims is July 20.
The question now is how does one benefit from Yahoo's apology?
Any resident of the United States who had an account between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2016 has the right to submit his claim through the dedicated site that contains information on compensation in various languages, including Arabic.
Individuals can also file claims via mail and online for any harm associated with these violations. Where users who can document the losses incurred due to these breaches can obtain compensation of up to 25 thousand dollars.
The amount of compensation depends on the number of qualified users who make claims during the mentioned period. The amount may reach $ 358.80 if most people choose not to claim compensation, and it may drop to a few dollars if a third of the 194 million members of the class case file financial claims.
In 2013, pirates, likely to belong to a country, hacked into all of Yahoo's three billion accounts, and the company did not disclose the breach until 2016.
The court fined Yahoo $ 35 million for failing to inform users quickly that their information might have been stolen. However, it took another full year before everyone knew about this breakout.