May 2014

eBay, the billion-dollar online auction company, has been hit with the second largest data breach in history, with more than 145 million users affected, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Although eBay insists that users’ financial information is safe, it confirmed that hackers were able to steal personal information including names, birth dates, email addresses, and passwords which could be used for identity theft. 

Unfortunately, victims may find that they cannot hold the tech giant accountable in court because of a forced arbitration clause buried in eBay's terms of service. 

Tech companies like eBay use forced arbitration clauses to evade privacy laws because they allow the company to kick violated users out of court and instead funnel them into a rigged forum run by an arbitrator selected by the company. This arbitrator is not required to have any legal training and does not even have to follow the law.

The asbestos-disease epidemic is one of the longest-running public health crises in the world.  Asbestos is still legal in the United States and kills at least 10,000 Americans every year.  It is estimated that asbestos will have killed 432,465 Americans by 2029.  

Class actions are often the only way that individuals can seek justice when they are faced with widespread corporate wrongdoing, but a series of recent  Supreme Court decisions threatens to eliminate the right of consumers and workers with similar claims to band together to hold corporations accountable.  Without class actions, Americans will have to take on corporations alone – often in the rigged system of forced arbitration – if they have the will to take them on at all.