Judge Allows Massachusetts to Sue Equifax

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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A judge in Massachusetts has denied a motion to dismiss from Equifax and is going to allow the state to sue them for the massive data breach that exposed personal information from millions of consumers last year. In my opinion this is a good ruling by the judge and this is just the beginning of the process for holding companies responsible for their poor security practices and policies. This trial should be interesting as it move forward. I can't wait to see what comes out in discovery.

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Salinger made the decision Wednesday to deny Equifax's motion to dismiss the suit, which centers around a security breach that exposed the data of about 147 million people, Reuters reported.
 
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Equifax owns your credit history. There's certain things that you can only do by getting them to do it (undo wrong credit history shit). The fact they had such a massive breach of the most sensitive data you can have, should be reason enough for them to be shut down by the government. The complacency around all this is unacceptable and an insult to citizens worldwide.
 
Hopefully this will set a new legal precedent where our personal information is considered valuable and that companies have a responsibility to protect it or face legal consequences.
 
SticKx911 said:
Super massive class action.
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all that will do is to make the lawyers happy. What would we, the poeple, possibly get out of a settlement?? OH.. maybe a free year of credit monitoring.. from a credit monitoring company OWNED by equifax. isnt that AWESOME?



BloodyIron said:
The complacency around all this is unacceptable and an insult to citizens worldwide.
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Actually there was any BUT complacency about this by the government. Congress swiftly moved.. to block liability claims.. and the IRS gave them a multi-million dollar contract for services.

hows that salt in the wound working for you?
 
PaulP said:
Hopefully this will set a new legal precedent where our personal information is considered valuable and that companies have a responsibility to protect it or face legal consequences.
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Can't tell if serious
 
Gweenz said:
Can't tell if serious
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Completely serious. Right now, if a company holds money for you (for example), they have a legal responsibility to keep it safe from theft. However our personal information is not treated the same way and it should be. I'm hoping that this case will be a starting point which leads to that.
 
PaulP said:
Completely serious. Right now, if a company holds money for you (for example), they have a legal responsibility to keep it safe from theft. However our personal information is not treated the same way and it should be. I'm hoping that this case will be a starting point which leads to that.
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Oh I agree 100%. But I would not hold out hope that a bought-and-sold gov't is going to do anything while the lobbying dollars keep coming in. Right now, Equifax has people bribing (aka lobbying) people in Congress so that there will be no repercussions. Do you have anyone in Washington throwing money at politicians?
 
katanaD said:
all that will do is to make the lawyers happy. What would we, the poeple, possibly get out of a settlement?? OH.. maybe a free year of credit monitoring.. from a credit monitoring company OWNED by equifax. isnt that AWESOME?
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They (Equifax) already tried this. They offered "free" credit monitoring that would auto-renew at the end of the year and charge your credit card. They also stuck a line in the TOS that said "by agreeing to this credit monitoring you agree to release us from our liability".
 
These breaches are bad. It gives info to scammers to use it, like those scam emails. But with personal info these scams can come off looking very real. And people fall for it. What pisses me off is some stores still dont use the chip on debit credit cards. And I know those places will get a breach sooner or later.
 
Good. I don't remember being able to opt in/out of this credit system. The powers that be determined people need credit to get a house, car, any type of loan or even a job and whether you had a credit card or not you are still a part of this system. I'm pissed because according to Equifax, I was affected by the breach so it is now a lottery whether someone will eventually try and use my social and personal info. I currently have my credit frozen so hopefully that will be enough but a pain in the ass when I need to get a new loan.
 
Gweenz said:
They (Equifax) already tried this. They offered "free" credit monitoring that would auto-renew at the end of the year and charge your credit card. They also stuck a line in the TOS that said "by agreeing to this credit monitoring you agree to release us from our liability".
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So glad that was reported on so I did not sign up for the free monitoring.
 
About 4 years ago I started telling my family (because they always ask me "is it safe?" questions about the internet. Do they want me to lie to them?) that virtually every entity on the internet they interact with is compromised in some way. They looked at me like I was crazy. Less so now.
 
Should be for nothing less than 6 figures per individual who was affected. Yes I want them to go under, yes I want 100% of assets of the company and employees seized and sold to try and come close to some pittance for the damage done. They hold too much power, they fucked up, they need to suffer for their mistakes.
 
arnemetis said:
Should be for nothing less than 6 figures per individual who was affected. Yes I want them to go under, yes I want 100% of assets of the company and employees seized and sold to try and come close to some pittance for the damage done. They hold too much power, they fucked up, they need to suffer for their mistakes.
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Don't hold back son. Tell us how you really feel?
 
LOL lawyers are dancing in the streets ( as they are the only ones thats gona see $ )
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this makes no sense. What happened sucked, but no one has been able to show that Equifax A: did anything wrong (besides suck at PR) or B: That anyone has actually been harmed.
 
Modred189 said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this makes no sense. What happened sucked, but no one has been able to show that Equifax A: did anything wrong (besides suck at PR) or B: That anyone has actually been harmed.
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Let's talk about money.

Imagine that you are FORCED to put the money on the banking system. And somehow, somebody left the safe opened and you lose your money. And now... nobody is held responsible.

Nice, ain't it?
 
prava said:
Let's talk about money.

Imagine that you are FORCED to put the money on the banking system. And somehow, somebody left the safe opened and you lose your money. And now... nobody is held responsible.

Nice, ain't it?
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But, there you've lost money. You were harmed.
It's also not analogs. Equifax had security systems in place and were testing a patch for the flaw that led to the breach.
 
I'm happy also that its a state with substantial financial and legal resources that may gain some traction in the battle. As many of us have experienced, America the best justice money can buy. May not always be true, but it seems to be more often than not. Here's wishing you the best Massachusetts ;)
 
TordanGow said:
Mick Mulvaney is a rat fuck piece of shit.
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I found it interesting that around budget time last year the CFP said "nope, we don't need more funding, we're good!" When was the last time you heard a government entity say that? They are gutting themselves from the inside because to Trump and his cronies these are all just unnecessary regulations. Consumers having protections just slows down big business.
 
cyclone3d said:
Because the government is so much better... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It would be 100x worse if you can even imagine that.
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Equifax is a private company that leaked all the data. Just... all the data. When was the last time you heard the government lost info about your Social Security or your drivers license? Equifax don't care about security because cheap Indian IT is cheap. For the government the idea of losing Social Security is basically making it damn near useless. And unlike other countries, we use SS as a means of identifying you, besides the drivers license. Which coincidentally was also lost to Equifax.

Also think about what does Equifax lose out of all this, besides their name? It also sounds like nobody has the right to sue Equifax. There doesn't seem to be enough incentives for Equifax to get better security. Google doesn't have this problem cause the incentive is making money off security. There's no money to be had with good security with Equifax, and therefore no incentive.
 
Gweenz said:
I found it interesting that around budget time last year the CFP said "nope, we don't need more funding, we're good!" When was the last time you heard a government entity say that? They are gutting themselves from the inside because to Trump and his cronies these are all just unnecessary regulations. Consumers having protections just slows down big business.
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The CFPB was just a shell set up fraud to funnel money to left wing organizations that had absolutely nothing to do with consumer protection.
https://www.investors.com/politics/...il-penalty-funds-to-democrat-activist-groups/
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/cfpb-corruption-funnel-money/
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/27/democrats-consumer-agency-debacle-192360
https://nypost.com/2017/11/29/it-turns-out-democrats-love-dark-money/
 
Montu said:
A judge in Massachusetts has denied a motion to dismiss from Equifax and is going to allow the state to sue them for the massive data breach that exposed personal information from millions of consumers last year. In my opinion this is a good ruling by the judge and this is just the beginning of the process for holding companies responsible for their poor security practices and policies. This trial should be interesting as it move forward. I can't wait to see what comes out in discovery.

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Salinger made the decision Wednesday to deny Equifax's motion to dismiss the suit, which centers around a security breach that exposed the data of about 147 million people, Reuters reported.
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We're sorry, state of MA, but when you agreed to let EFX do business in your state, you waived all rights to sue us and agreed to mandatory binding arbitration to settle all disputes.
 
Modred189 said:
But, there you've lost money. You were harmed.
It's also not analogs. Equifax had security systems in place and were testing a patch for the flaw that led to the breach.
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No but they are quite possibly guilty of criminal negligence. You don't have to prove damages in such cases. An example of this: Exposing someone to a known chemical that causes cancer. The likelihood of it affecting your health is high.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
No but they are quite possibly guilty of criminal negligence. You don't have to prove damages in such cases. An example of this: Exposing someone to a known chemical that causes cancer. The likelihood of it affecting your health is high.
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Toxic tort law is unique in US law and generally inapplicable here.
 
Kinestron said:
Good. I don't remember being able to opt in/out of this credit system. The powers that be determined people need credit to get a house, car, any type of loan or even a job and whether you had a credit card or not you are still a part of this system. I'm pissed because according to Equifax, I was affected by the breach so it is now a lottery whether someone will eventually try and use my social and personal info. I currently have my credit frozen so hopefully that will be enough but a pain in the ass when I need to get a new loan.
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Unfortunately, freezing your credit does very little to protect your financial well being.
1) Freezing your credit does nothing to protect you from medical insurance fraud, i.e. someone using your SS# at the hospital, because they don't have their insurance card with them.
2) Freezing your credit does nothing to protect you from tax fraud, i.e someone filing a fraudulent tax return.
3) Freezing your credit does nothing to protect you from identity theft, i.e someone uses your information to obtain a driver's license/ID and uses that fake ID with police. You get a police warrant issued against you, so when you have the next interaction with a police officer, you go to jail until they can figure out you are a victim of identity theft.
4) The data breach leaked enough information for scammers to attempt to unfreeze your credit.
 
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