Yahoo Inc. has agreed to pay up to $4 million in fees to settle a class-action lawsuit filed, but the lawyers, not the plaintiffs will get the pay-out.
The suit was brought by non-customers opposed to the company's analysis of subscribers' ingoing and outgoing emails for the purpose of delivering targeted ads. But plaintiffs won't see any compensation, as it will all go to their counsel at Girard Gibbs and Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer, pending judiciary approval, according to a report in The Recorder.
The plaintiffs argued in court that Yahoo violated their privacy because they never consented to having their emails analyzed. Yahoo has agreed to change its privacy disclosures and alter its operations so the analysis of files only happens after landing in a recipient's inbox, rather than before. What remains unclear is how the changes allay the original concerns of the plaintiffs.
