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Visiting Equifax's site to see if you're a victim of the recent data breach can require you to waive lawsuit rights:
By all accounts, the Equifax data breach is, as we reported Thursday, "very possibly the worst leak of personal info ever." The incident affects possibly as many as 143 million people.
But if you want to find out if your data might have been exposed, you waive your right to sue the Atlanta-based company. We're not making this up. The company has now published a website allowing consumers to input their last six digits of their Social Security numbers to find out.
Like most websites, at the bottom of this new site is a section called "Terms of Use." There, in paragraph 4, is bolded, uppercase text of note. It tells site visitors that you agree to waive your right to sue and instead must "resolve all disputes by binding, individual arbitration."
AGREEMENT TO RESOLVE ALL DISPUTES BY BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION. PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION CAREFULLY BECAUSE IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS BY REQUIRING ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES (EXCEPT AS SET FORTH BELOW) AND A WAIVER OF THE ABILITY TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION, CLASS ARBITRATION, OR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. ARBITRATION PROVIDES A QUICK AND COST EFFECTIVE MECHANISM FOR RESOLVING DISPUTES, BUT YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT IT ALSO LIMITS YOUR RIGHTS TO DISCOVERY AND APPEAL.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:01PM (6 children)
This was confirmed by equifax and an AG not to be true. You won't waive your rights just by checking.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:06PM (3 children)
Link?
And note that even if their PR department did say that, it isn't relevant. All that matters is the wording of the agreement itself. Nearly every written contract specifies that it constitutes the entire contract.
If they really wished to resolve the issue they should add a clarification to the terms document.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Marand on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:51PM (2 children)
Link [equifaxsecurity2017.com]
It's right there on the front page of the site you're supposed to go through to do the check; the one that was linked in the previous SN story on the breach. It's been there about a day, now, likely added because of the belief that checking waives your rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @09:38AM
I tried wget:
Resolving www.equifaxsecurity2017.com (www.equifaxsecurity2017.com)... 104.20.65.37
Connecting to www.equifaxsecurity2017.com (www.equifaxsecurity2017.com)|104.20.65.37|:443... connected.
ERROR: The certificate of ‘www.equifaxsecurity2017.com’ is not trusted.
ERROR: The certificate of ‘www.equifaxsecurity2017.com’ hasn't got a known issuer.
ERROR: The certificate of ‘www.equifaxsecurity2017.com’ was signed using an insecure algorithm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @10:38PM
> It's right there on the front page of the site you're supposed to go through to do the check; the one that was linked in the previous SN story on the breach.
Right there on their Wordpress site, you mean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:33PM
Although they have it there hoping people will assume their rights will be given up just by checking and as a result refuse to either check (win for the incompetent company that failed to protect it's users properly) or will give up those rights willingly (thinking they've already lost them) and put themselves at the mercy of the arbitration. (win for the incompetent company that failed to protect it's users properly).
Gee, wonder why they made sure it was added to the website.
(Score: 5, Informative) by krishnoid on Sunday September 10 2017, @01:01AM
My that-other-site post:
Nope [snopes.com]. New York's attorney general demanded they clarify the wording [twitter.com] on this.