The Freedom to get Ripped Off

If you haven't heard about the Equifax hack yet, welcome to Earth . . . we've missed you. Here is the thumbnail sketch:

• Equifax is a credit reporting agency.
• As a credit reporting agency, Equifax compiles information on consumer spending, including such trivial items as credit accounts, utility accounts, bank accounts, social security numbers, income, etc.
• Equifax and Experian are the "Coke" and "Pepsi" of credit reporting agencies, though even that analogy may understate their dominance in the industry.
• Credit reporting agencies are how your credit score is derived.
• Equifax was provided with information in March that informed it that its information was vulnerable to hackers.
• Equifax was provided with a fix for this vulnerability, in March.
• In May, this vulnerability was exploited by hackers.
• To repeat, Equifax was notified of the vulnerability in March, offered a fix for the vulnerability in March, and was then hacked via this vulnerability in May.
• Three top executives then dumped more than $1m worth of stock in Equifax days after discovering that it had been hacked, but well before publicly acknowledging the hack.
• Equifax announced that it had been hacked, exposing sensitive information on 143,000,000 Americans on September 7.

So here we are. If your own sensitive, personal information did not get ripped off in the equifax hack, then either the person to your left, the person to your right, or both of them had theirs ripped off.

I note that often times when businesses get hacked, there is at least a bit of responsibility on the consumer's part (even if illusory). If Big Red Liquors gets hacked and somehow my credit card number is stolen from their database, I suppose I could possible be a bit to blame in that I chose to shop at Big Red Liquors. I could have shopped at 21st Amendment or Kroger (or not imbibe, but who are we kidding?) after all.

Equifax is different. I never made any sort of a conscious choice to do business with them or expose my information to them. 

Nonetheless, they had my sensitive information. They were careless with it. They lost it.

For all of those out there who believe that "Government is not the solution; government is the problem," I ask you what is the solution to a situation like this? Is there a market mechanism whereby Equifax will in the future be willing to expend resources to keep the information of its "marks" safe? Why would they? Wouldn't their executives and stockholders simply prefer higher profits and less security? It's not as though their "marks" have any choice in whether to have their credit monitored by these "big brother" organizations.

Perhaps we should ask those lovers of "freedom" representing Indiana at both the state and national level. Congressman Rokita, any thoughts? Congressman Messer? Senator Young (IN and D.C. versions)? How do we address a problem like this without "big government"?

Anyone have any ideas? I tend to think this is a matter for government regulation. Is that what makes me a liberal?