Category Archives: Uncategorized

Signing up for Equifax May Cost You Your Legal Rights.

Worried you may be affected by Equifax's massive data breach? The credit bureau has set up a site, equifaxsecurity2017.com, that allows you to check whether your personal information was exposed and sign up for credit monitoring. But regulators and lawyers are becoming concerned that the site could pose risks to consumers. As a result, you […]

Equifax and Arbitration

by Scott Nelson     As Jeff noted earlier this morning, Equifax's offer of "complimentary" enrollment in "TrustedID Premier" to people potentially affected (and even people that it doesn't identify as potentially affected) by its data breach came with a catch: The TrustedID Premier terms and conditions include an arbitration clause and class action ban. The terms […]

Oops: Equifax Cyberbreach Exposes Personal Data

By Scott Nelson The nation's three big credit-reporting companies have tremendous power over American consumers and collect the most sensitive data about us. With that great power should go great responsibility to protect that information. Now comes news, via CNN, that one of the big three, Equifax, discovered on July 29 that between May and […]

Anonymous Users’ Objection to Search Warrant Seeking to Identify Users Who Communicated with Trump Inauguration Protest Site

by Paul Alan Levy Today we filed our brief on behalf of three anonymous Internet users who object to the breadth of the proposed orders submitted by the Government and by DreamHost, each spelling out their alternative versions of the how Chief Judge Robert Morin had articulated his ruling that enforced a narrowed search warrant […]

House passes bill exempting driverless cars from current safety standards

The House yesterday passed a bipartisan bill, called the “Self Drive Act,” addressing driverless cars. Among other things, the bill would allow car companies to introduce as many as 100,000 such vehicles a year — exempted from safety standards while the technology is developing. At the same time, the bill would bar states from implementing […]

House holds hearing on bill to limit consumer remedies against credit reporting agencies

The House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee is holding a hearing this morning on HR 2359, entitled the "FCRA Liability Harmonization Act," which would reduce consumer remedies for credit reporting abuses. It would impose a $500,000 cap on damages in class actions brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and eliminate punitive damages in individual […]

Does the federal courts’ PACER system undermine the public’s constitutional right of access to court papers?

That's the issue addressed in The Price of Ignorance: The Constitutional Cost of Fees for Access to Electronic Public Court Records by Stephen Schultze. Here's the abstract: The United States federal judiciary maintains a system called PACER, “Public Access to Court Electronic Records.” PACER is the public gateway into the electronic repository for documents filed in federal […]

Despite Claims that CFPB Regs Increase Lending Costs, MBA Reports Mortgage Origination Costs Close to Historic Lows

by Jeff Sovern Housing Wire reports on mortgage origination costs in a report headlined MBA: The cost to produce a mortgage falls closer to historic lows, with a subhead reading "Independent mortgage bank production profitability improves."  Reports like this make it difficult to justify claims that the CFPB is significantly adding to lending costs.