New | Yahoo’s data breach draws negligence lawsuits by users

Yahoo! is being accused in lawsuits of failing to secure customer data after the company said the personal information of at least 500 million users was stolen in a 2014 hack.

As a result of the company’s “failure to establish and implement basic data security protocols, contrary to Yahoo’s guarantees, its users’ personal information is now in the hands of criminals and/or enemies of the US,” according to the latest complaint, filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, California.

The case was filed by a New York resident and seeks class-action status on behalf of other Yahoo users. Similar cases have been filed in Illinois and San Diego.

The disclosure of the data theft comes at a particularly sensitive time for Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer, as she navigates the company toward a planned US$4.8 billion acquisition by Verizon Communications Inc., set to close by early next year.

Mayer, who has dealt with difficulties and complaints about Yahoo’s e-mail service in the past, needs to keep users logging in to drive traffic and draw the advertising that fuels the company’s revenue growth, which has been sluggish under her leadership.

Yahoo spokesman Charles Stewart declined to comment on the San Jose complaint.