3 ms·

> “One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.” This is hilarious. A rehash of Friedmans' if the state had monopoly of the sa

> “One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.” This is hilarious. A rehash of Friedmans' if the state had monopoly of the sahara, it would run out of sand in 5 years. On the case in hand, equifax is a not a poster case for advocating for more regulation.

r00fus 9y ago
> On the case in hand, equifax is a not a poster case for advocating for more regulation. Not following. Why not?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Equifax is not the result of a free market or lack of regulation, its a company that subsists in an artificial high barrier to entry space, where strange things happen like equifax is not liable for the mistakes it makes (which are grotesque and frequent). Equifax receives government protection, not scrutiny, so more regulation means more protection..
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    In what world would more competition and less regulation cause Equifax (or a company like it) to do a better job securing Americans data? Few, if any, of its important customers were harmed.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Equifax has had a terrible rep as a service long before the hack. Even john oliver had a segment on it before the hack happened, on how an egregious number of reports are grossly innacurate (like 40%, i cant remember). That has to be bad even for the banks: bad credit reports equals bad loans. Regulation tends to decrease the number of players and increase the size of the incumbents, particularly because it puts requirements that can only be done with big bucks.
      - Slansitartop 9y ago
        But none of that has anything to do with securing Americans' data. Also, even if that 40% figure is true, which I doubt, it's not like banks are going to care until they run out of people they'd like to loan money to. Meanwhile, regular non-bank Americans get screwed in ways that could have been mitigated by regulation. In economic terms, that's called an externality, a concept which is covered in any reasonable Econ 101 book. The foolish solution to a market failure is more market.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    So how would less regulation around data security (which is the thing that this is about) prevent another Equifax? Remember, you and I are not Equifax's customers, so we have no ability to choose anything in this scenario.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      You need responsibility not regulation. Sue equifax into oblivion.
      - aerotwelve 9y ago
        Equifax took care of this possibility by taking advantage of the freedom they had to place binding arbitration clauses in their customer agreements. Unless you're independently wealthy, taking Equifax on by yourself in court is a non-starter. This, of course, was the point of adding these clauses in the first place.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        I don't buy that, mainly because that only works if I can afford to sue those doing wrong. Most people cannot. Hence, why the government is there: to uphold these laws, and use everyone's collective resources to do that.
        conanbatt 9y ago
        Class action lawsuits are pretty good at that. Which is what equifax is going through.
        Slansitartop 9y ago
        There are two problems with this view: 1) Sophisticated corporations have developed legal loopholes to eliminate their vulnerability to class actions. Wells Fargo used this tactic to have the lawsuits about the fraudulent accounts it created dismissed [1]. Equifax may or may not be able to benefit from similar provisions (they had one on their website terms of use, which their twitter said didn't apply to the breach as they were getting PR flak for it). In a move you doubtless approve of, the regulation that would have restored consumer access to the legal system was repealed [2]. 2) Money damages in a class action lawsuits aren't going to really make the victims of the Equifax breach whole. Valuing your leaked personal data is very difficult, as is proving that an identity theft was performed with information leaked from a particular source, and both of these will work in Equifax's favor in court. The data has been leaked, and a lawsuit isn't going to put it back into a bottle, nor is it likely to financially chastise Equifax adequately. [1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-arbitration-20151205-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-arbitratio... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/senate-kills-cfpb-rule-on-arbitration-class-action-lawsuits.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/senate-kills-cfpb-rule-on-ar...
  - aerotwelve 9y ago
    In what manner does Equifax receive government protection? (Aside from Mulvaney's dereliction of duty in this case)

r00fus 9y ago

> On the case in hand, equifax is a not a poster case for advocating for more regulation. Not following. Why not?

conanbatt 9y ago
Equifax is not the result of a free market or lack of regulation, its a company that subsists in an artificial high barrier to entry space, where strange things happen like equifax is not liable for the mistakes it makes (which are grotesque and frequent). Equifax receives government protection, not scrutiny, so more regulation means more protection..
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  In what world would more competition and less regulation cause Equifax (or a company like it) to do a better job securing Americans data? Few, if any, of its important customers were harmed.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Equifax has had a terrible rep as a service long before the hack. Even john oliver had a segment on it before the hack happened, on how an egregious number of reports are grossly innacurate (like 40%, i cant remember). That has to be bad even for the banks: bad credit reports equals bad loans. Regulation tends to decrease the number of players and increase the size of the incumbents, particularly because it puts requirements that can only be done with big bucks.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      But none of that has anything to do with securing Americans' data. Also, even if that 40% figure is true, which I doubt, it's not like banks are going to care until they run out of people they'd like to loan money to. Meanwhile, regular non-bank Americans get screwed in ways that could have been mitigated by regulation. In economic terms, that's called an externality, a concept which is covered in any reasonable Econ 101 book. The foolish solution to a market failure is more market.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  So how would less regulation around data security (which is the thing that this is about) prevent another Equifax? Remember, you and I are not Equifax's customers, so we have no ability to choose anything in this scenario.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    You need responsibility not regulation. Sue equifax into oblivion.
    - aerotwelve 9y ago
      Equifax took care of this possibility by taking advantage of the freedom they had to place binding arbitration clauses in their customer agreements. Unless you're independently wealthy, taking Equifax on by yourself in court is a non-starter. This, of course, was the point of adding these clauses in the first place.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      I don't buy that, mainly because that only works if I can afford to sue those doing wrong. Most people cannot. Hence, why the government is there: to uphold these laws, and use everyone's collective resources to do that.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        Class action lawsuits are pretty good at that. Which is what equifax is going through.
        Slansitartop 9y ago
        There are two problems with this view: 1) Sophisticated corporations have developed legal loopholes to eliminate their vulnerability to class actions. Wells Fargo used this tactic to have the lawsuits about the fraudulent accounts it created dismissed [1]. Equifax may or may not be able to benefit from similar provisions (they had one on their website terms of use, which their twitter said didn't apply to the breach as they were getting PR flak for it). In a move you doubtless approve of, the regulation that would have restored consumer access to the legal system was repealed [2]. 2) Money damages in a class action lawsuits aren't going to really make the victims of the Equifax breach whole. Valuing your leaked personal data is very difficult, as is proving that an identity theft was performed with information leaked from a particular source, and both of these will work in Equifax's favor in court. The data has been leaked, and a lawsuit isn't going to put it back into a bottle, nor is it likely to financially chastise Equifax adequately. [1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-arbitration-20151205-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-arbitratio... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/senate-kills-cfpb-rule-on-arbitration-class-action-lawsuits.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/senate-kills-cfpb-rule-on-ar...
- aerotwelve 9y ago
  In what manner does Equifax receive government protection? (Aside from Mulvaney's dereliction of duty in this case)