Considering that companies like Google and Apple went to illegal extremes to prevent competition for labor and depress employee wages, I find it unlikely that they’re not going to do the same thing here. They’ll probably invent some cryptic, convoluted means to launder the data, and if they ever get caught, pay whatever slap on the wrist fine is the cost of doing this kind of stuff.

I'm as cynical as you are, and even won an award in that lawsuit. However, aren't both companies under different management now? (Tim vs. Steve, etc.)

Apple, maybe. Google, not so much. Still skeptical either way.

The head changes - the process stays the same. Without monetary damages, companys would just continue to hire CEOs to take the blame, like a ablative hull.

are you sure you are replying to the correct comment. Nothing you wrote seems to have anything to do with what I posted:)

Gargoyle is responding to "No word on if they are allowed to use Equifax, etc to pull salary data from?"

This is so dumb. Employers can research candidate history without any chance of getting caught, and it's an obvious goal of most ethical (1st amendment respecting) hackers to make sure it stays that way.

Clearly CA needs another state agency to look for employers breaking this law. Heck... why not go full China?

You didn't understand. This kind of situation is very common. It's not that there's someone looking for a certain violation, but that the violation arises in the course of an already started, maybe unrelated investigation.

Actually I don't like this kind of law at all, because it causes random enforcement or in the worst case enables selective enforcement.

I'm curious, how does the 1st Amendment play into this?

Are employers not people?

My question was more "how does not being allowed to use Equifax violate the First Amendment".

Probably because the first only protects your right to speak, not to read. Querying a database isn’t expression.