LOS ANGELES: Yahoo has been ordered by a federal judge to face much of a lawsuit in the United States claiming that the personal information of all 3 billion users was compromised in a series of data breaches.
In a decision on Friday night, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a bid by Verizon Communications Inc, which bought Yahoo’s Internet business last June, to dismiss many claims, including for negligence and breach of contract.
Koh dismissed some other claims. She had previously denied Yahoo’s bid to dismiss some unfair competition claims.
Yahoo was accused of being too slow to disclose three data breaches that occurred from 2013 and 2016, increasing users’ risk of identity theft and requiring them to spend money on credit freeze, monitoring and other protection services.
The breaches were revealed after New York-based Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo’s Internet business, and prompted a cut in the purchase price to about $4.5 billion.
A Verizon spokesman had no immediate comment on Monday. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs amended their complaint after Yahoo last October revealed that the 2013 breach affected all 3 billion users, tripling its earlier estimate.
Koh said the amended complaint highlighted the importance of security in the plaintiffs’ decision to use Yahoo.
“Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient to show that they would have behaved differently had defendants disclosed the security weaknesses of the Yahoo Mail System,” Koh wrote.
She also said the plaintiffs could try to show that liability limits in Yahoo’s terms of service were “unconscionable,” given the allegations that Yahoo knew its security was deficient but did little.
In seeking a dismissal, Yahoo said it has long been the target of “relentless criminal attacks,” and the plaintiffs’ “20/20 hindsight” did not cast doubt on its “unending” efforts to thwart “constantly evolving security threats.”
Last March, US prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers in connection with one of the Yahoo breaches.
One accused hacker, Karim Baratov, a Canadian born in Kazakhstan, pleaded guilty in November to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy charges. The other defendants remained at large in Russia.
Data breach victims can sue Yahoo in the United States: Judge
Data breach victims can sue Yahoo in the United States: Judge
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
