This is because collecting so much information isn’t about protecting your security or even monitoring your credit in Equifax’s case. It’s about collecting even more digital you and selling it to whoever will pay. They don’t care about data breaches, they care about profit and on any ‘free’ service that means selling you and/or forcefeeding you custom ads.

It’s basically a zero-cost thing they can offer and makes a lot of people feel better about how screwed they just got.

It’s very much the ideal ‘the least we could do!’ offering.

It’s bullshit & they’re putting the onus on us to keep our credit data safe while they make tons of cash off said data.

It is just a free trial with the long term goal of getting people to subscribe when it expires.

“Please don’t force us to advertise our services to our victims!”

Garbage. It doesn’t punish them, hold them accountable, or force them to improve their security practices.

Every breach like this should automatically require a $100 cheque to every affected account holder. Two nillion accounts compromised? $200M is a real consequence.

The good news is that a lot of banks now offer free credit monitoring, alerts and controls because they know your data has already been breached. This allows you to, via your bank’s interface, take control of your credit monitoring instead of handing it off to an agency that profits from gobbling up whatever it can know about you.

Check with your bank to see what tools they have available for you.

Freeze your credit report sharing with all major consumer reporting agencies when not applying for new credit. Without reports, lenders won’t grant new lines of credit in your name. It’s free and timely, as required by US law.

Credit monitoring companies just run credit checks, which they can’t do with your credit frozen. Check your credit every 3-4 months yourself at annualcreditreport.com (proof of legitimacy).

Don’t stay informed of breaches, prevent them.