Consumer Confidential: Barring lawsuits is slimy, rampant practice

Equifax won't win any prizes for its handling of a massive security breach that potentially exposed the personal information of 143 million people to hackers.

But it was striking that of all the things that outraged consumers, the one that drew the most attention was Equifax's inclusion of an arbitration clause in its offer of free credit monitoring.

Yes, it was slimy for the company to try to deny people their right to sue or to join class-action lawsuits.

But no, Equifax was by no means alone in pulling such a stunt.

The reality is that many,