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Comment by dcole2929 | Hacker News Reader

Am i the only one kind of shocked at how little he actually got? I realize it's small claims court but seriously that's a pittance compared to the cost of a lifetime of credit monitoring. Say you're 30 years old. You have a reasonable expectations of living another 30-40 years minimum. Being compensated for only 120 months (10 years) of credit monitoring is just ridiculous.

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There's usually a small claims upper limit, so that's the max you can ask for without going to a regular trial court, where the rules are much more complex.

143m users times $8000 makes for a pretty penny. In fact, it would bankrupt the company, as it should.

As it should? If so, they probably ought not be operating: they are giving consumers a liability they couldn't afford to pay, and profiting from this liability by selling the information to third parties.

If the profits from this sale aren't enough to cover the liabilities, then their business model is fundamentally flawed.

But they don't really have that much liability. Very few will sue and win.

Given how many data breaches we have, and given that it only takes once (ie: most won't change their name/address), I'm pretty sure in 10 years we'll have laws in place giving you free protection or limited liability or some combination of things.

Equifax has already given up the goods on more or less every single American adult, so we already need those laws.

It's cheap to freeze your credit report.

It should be free. There is absolutely zero reason why I should have to pay to see my credit report at any time, or decide that I wish to freeze my credit at any time.

Well, there is one reason: so companies like Equifax can make even more money.

It's free in some states, depending on the circumstances. And yes, it should indeed be free. I wish I could opt out of giving them any of my data entirely, but it's neither practical nor possible.

In California, a security freeze is free to identity theft victims[0] who have a police report of identity theft.

[0] https://oag.ca.gov/idtheft/facts/freeze-your-credit

Why? It's not really yours. It's service which collects and aggregates data from lenders and provides it to other lenders to evaluate your risk as a borrower. You the borrower are barely involved. There's nothing authoritative about their assessment of you other than popularity.

In another world you wouldn't even be allowed to see your number. It's not like similar agencies -- fraud detection, ad firms, social networks, spam blacklists, etc. -- let you see the profile they've built about you.

They're a for-profit company in the business of selling data, the fact that you're in the market for you own profile, to me, seems immaterial. The only reason you're required to be able to view your report once a year for free is to correct mistakes.

It absolutely is mine. It's my data, and my credit.

I do not care at all that they're a "for-profit company." I don't believe they should be able to profit on my data without allowing me to see it, and make corrections as needed.

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