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Comment by okcando | Hacker News Reader

What I find especially bothersome is that their resolution has, in practice, only cost their victims more.

Because the time needed to fill out that form and provide the documents will have been worth more than the payout, if one ever comes, for just about anyone who bothered to do it.

Not at all satisfactory.

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I honestly, no bullshit, wish the hackers had simply released the entire dataset. Just drop kicked it into the the public domain.

It would have been the greatest thing ever. This dumb ass bullshit system of credit reporting would have dissolved overnight. Instead we're stuck with the worst of all worlds. Our information is completely fucked, and we're the ones expected to protect it. And we're not even permitted to have proper tools to protect ourselves.

I totally get your sentiment about it forcing reform. What would replace it though?

Risk assessment is a valid concern for lenders. Diligent payers should be rewarded.

I don't think the lending industry would go away with a leak, though I do think that more players with the ability to analyze the data could have come along and used the data set to lower the costs of lending and/or incentivized other systems of data collection/risk analysis and underwriting.

Though I do think it would have hurt the bottom line of the giants that have few incentives to innovate, and many incentives to maintain the way things are.

> I honestly, no bullshit, wish the hackers had simply released the entire dataset. Just drop kicked it into the the public domain.

A lot of systems that leverage data behind walled gardens, collected from the masses and for the benefit of the few could also have the same approach. A couple of high profile "leaks" come to mind…

It's expensive to make big companies pay for their misdeeds.

There would be no settlement at all without lawyers taking the case on contingency and fronting the costs.

No settlement would be better since filling out the forms costs more than $6 in time.

The settlement is meant to be punitive, not necessarily amount to a windfall for you. It's not terribly easy in a case like this to even prove damages.

And no, it wouldn't be better to let them off the hook completely. I'm not saying this settlement is _at all_ satisfying, but c'mon.

The settlement is also political cover to avoid dealing with this problem. Without that some more meaningful change could have happened.

I do disagree with you.

Edit: I seen 3 versions of that post so NM.

"I do not disagree with you at all."

Edited my response to be less haughty :D

I apparently screwed up on the edit, but only two versions. I do not disagree with you. I can no longer edit. I blame my phone and fat fingers.

It's a mess now. The gist of my original comment was "I agree with you".

That’s fine, I must have miss read it the first time. Because I re read it noted the double negative and was editing it when I then saw the final version...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Windfall? People are hoping at best for a tiny fraction of the cost of actual damages. That's not a windfall. The only people getting a windfall are the class action attorneys. The actual victims get basically nothing.

I think you interpreted what I said in the worst way possible, and again, it's incredibly difficult to prove damages. We all know they exist, but if you can prove them you don't need a class action.

If it's meant to be punitive, shouldn't the full penalty amount get divided evenly among everyone who applies for the compensation, rather than being a fixed $6 per person who applies? Or does Equifax somehow end up losing the full penalty amount regardless (e.g. is the unclaimed amount paid to the government etc.)?

It depends on the settlement agreement, but they don't typically go back to the defendant. In this case, I found one source without looking up the actual agreement

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2019/07/26/what-happe...

>Any funds unclaimed after 4-year extension will be distributed in services

>Services offered are for identity restoration, credit monitoring

And those services are from... Equifax, which I feel is pretty shitty. Like I said, I don't like the settlement itself, but lawyers get a lot of hate for class actions from people who seemingly don't appreciate the risk they take in taking in the case.

I’m so so glad they took all that risk on so that I can get $6 while they get 80 million. Poor lawyers, so charitable of them.

And who gave them the right to profit massively off the violation of my privacy. I should be able to sue them. This is not justice, this is profiteering off others misfortune.

Design a better system then, I don't know what to tell you. The lawyers didn't engineer this debacle.

They essentially stole my info and did nothing to protect can it. A corporate death penalty should exist and all assets seized including every paperclip

This company should be "old yellered"

I agree

It isn't supposed to punish the claimants though. Filling out the form was worth less than the payoff. Better to just burn the settlement than to waste everyone's time trying to distribute it. Or give out $600 to every 1 out of 100 claimants based on a lottery instead of $6 to all.

I opted out, hoping that another case would be pursued.

> their resolution has, in practice, only cost their victims more

All class actions are this way.

The only correct move is to exclude yourself from the class and reserve your right to sue individually, after the class action, citing that as precedent.

Class members never get more than a useless coupon or comparable.

Have you sued and had that work well? I'm interested in doing this but I am curious to know how well it works.

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