The judge had previously shot down attempts by Yahoo and Verizon to dismiss unfair competition claims. In attempting to take down most of the claims, Yahoo had maintained that the lawsuit was based on "20/20 hindsight" and didn't change that the company had been continuously fighting security threats.

This ruling could put Yahoo and Verizon on the hook for a tremendous sum if the lawsuit is successful. It eventually became clear that all of Yahoo's 3 billion users circa 2013 were affected by the first big breach, and that's not including the people affected by the two other breaches between then and 2016. Only a fraction of those users are American, but that could still lead to a costly payout.