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Comment by iflywithbook | Hacker News Reader

"Under the terms of the Settlement, Yahoo has enhanced, or, through its successor in interest, Oath Holdings Inc. (“Oath”), continues to enhance its business practices that will improve the security of its users’ personal information stored on its databases. Defendants will also pay for a Settlement Fund of $117,500,000. The Settlement Fund will provide a minimum of two years of Credit Monitoring Services to protect Settlement Class Members from future harm, or an alternative cash payment for those who verify they already have credit monitoring or identity protection."

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Why do judges agree to forcing consumers to have useless product of credit monitoring in place to receive a cash payout?

Can I set up a “virtual” credit monitoring that provides that type of service in name only to cover that requirement? Imagine paying $5 to claim you have credit monitoring for settlement purposes.

> Can I set up a “virtual” credit monitoring that provides that type of service in name only to cover that requirement?

Absolutely. https://creditkarma.com/ is free, and counts.

The appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, have applied doctrines favoring settlements—-which make sense in a normal lawsuit—-in the context of class actions, where they exacerbate the already severe conflict of interest between counsel and the class.

The one thing most District Court judges like least is being overruled on appeal.

But the real blame falls on Congress. They ought to adopt a real regulatory apparatus and put away the class action (vice mass action).

Pretty much every major credit card offers it for free. Most large banks are now offering it as well. You shouldn't need to pay anything if you're using either of these.

I mean, you should have one from one of the many previous breaches. Also, arguably your credit card or mortgage company may be providing you enough monitoring to claim you have it. For those who suffered under TurboTax, Intuit offers a free credit monitoring service as well.

Credit monitoring, like antivirus, is something you should have, but should not be paying for.

It's 2019. "Credit monitoring", like antivirus, is something you simply should not have. Rather, you should take steps to avoid being beholden to broken systems in the first place.

For "credit monitoring" specifically, individuals should not be doing the surveillance bureau's work for them. If lenders don't think it is necessary to do diligence when issuing credit, then why should I make up for it by half-policing [0] use of my public identifiers? The more painful fraud is for lenders, the more incentive they have to actually do some diligence rather than trying to push their lack of responsibility onto everyone else.

[0] If I had total legal control over the use of my public identifiers, I would simply tell the surveillance bureaus to delete all data kept on me. But we are not given this option, which indicates how the surveillance bureaus do not work for us. The less we give them, the better.

Well, I have a mortgage, so not being beholden to them isn't really an option.

It seems that already having a mortgage means you're much less beholden than someone who intends to apply for one in the future...

I would rather be less involved with these credit companies. I recently spent about a month getting some BS off my Experian account. Whenever you're on hold you need to sit through around 10 minutes of commercials for their data protection services.

Experian.

The company responsible for possibly the biggest data leak in history. Advertising data protection services.

The balls of some companies

Equifax and Experian are not the same, although Experian has reported a smaller breach before, and of course, if you got credit monitoring from the Equifax breach, they have since offloaded you to Experian.

But the reality is: These companies already have your data, so being signed up so you can also see it isn't giving them any more information.

If i make a credit inquiry I immediately get a notification from mint, credit karma, chase, my credit union. Im sure, if you use multiple banks, that you can find a place to turn on credit monitoring for free.

Its so that they can give their settlement value. Even if the value is crap.

AIUI, the damages are not punitive. They are meant to cover the actual harms associated with Yahoo's negligence. Unless you've actually had your identity stolen due to the breach, your losses are capped at whatever action you had to take to counteract risks added by the breach. That is, the cost of acquiring credit monitoring services.

The problem is that damages can occur after the settlement, right?

Yeah I would much rather have the $0.37 than credit monitoring.

I’m not sure if you’re sarcastic but I would much prefer $0.37 to credit monitoring.

I'm sure that the lawyers were equally paid in credit monitoring service sbscriptions.

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