Facts

Plaintiff Robert Anthony represented a class of subscribers to defendant Yahoo Inc.'s site Yahoo Personals and Yahoo Personals Premier. The class members paid monthly fees of $20 to $30 to access the above-mentioned sites. Class members were those who were current subscribers or who had subscribed after Jan. 1, 2001. The plaintiffs sued Yahoo for breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and unjust enrichment.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS:
The plaintiffs contended that Yahoo intentionally created and distributed false and/or non-existent profiles on its sites in order to generate interest in the services provided and to inflate the number of subscribers. The plaintiffs argued that Yahoo deceived users into renewing memberships and falsely indicated to subscribers that they had potential matches.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Yahoo countered that it did not create or distribute false profiles on the sites in question nor did they encourage anyone else to do so. As well, Yahoo argued that the suit was barred by the Communications Decency Act, which protects on-line service providers from suit based on content created by third parties.

Result

The plaintiffs accepted a settlement in the amount of $4 million, which included $20,000 to Anthony as the named plaintiff and $54,431 in costs. The settlement notice was sent to 2,154,236 Yahoo accounts and 31,000 class members submitted claims for inclusion in the settlement.