A Fight Over Credit Scores Turns Into All-Out War
A long-simmering battle over who controls credit scoring in America has erupted into open warfare. Fair Isaac, whose FICO score is used in about 90% of consumer-lending decisions in the U.S., announced it will double the price of its mortgage credit score to $10 next year. The company also said it will bypass the three credit-reporting firms that have supplied the data feeding into its algorithm for decades.
Equifax, Experian and TransUnion created VantageScore in 2006 as an alternative to FICO and collectively own the scoring system. The move came months after Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would allow lenders to use VantageScore for mortgage approvals. The three credit-reporting firms responded by offering VantageScore free for many loans. Fair Isaac had charged a few cents per score for decades before chief executive Will Lansing began raising prices several years ago. Revenue from selling credit scores reached $920 million in fiscal 2024, nearly five times what it was a decade earlier.
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Leonardo DiCaprio, 50, shocks as he ditches signature mask while out with girlfriend, 27, amid Oscar buzz
Leonardo DiCaprio made the rare move of stepping out without his go-to disguise while leaving Nobu with his girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti and pal Tobey Maguire.
Rochdale grooming gang 'monster' who trafficked vulnerable girls and made a 13-year-old pregnant won't be allowed back into Britain after fleeing the country
'Vile' paedophile Adil Khan, 55, has spent more than a decade using human rights legislation to thwart efforts to deport him back to his native Pakistan.
Primark’s £34 ‘winter essential’ coat that shoppers say they ‘need’
The colder weather means a nice thick coat to keep you warm can be important
Lost site of famed Jesus miracle described in the Bible is FOUND
Archaeologists have identified the site where Jesus cast demons from a man into a herd of pigs, which is mentioned in three Gospels of the Bible.
The ultimate 2026 holiday guide: From Sir Richard Branson to the Lonely Planet founder, we asked all the leading travel experts exactly where they're heading... and this is how YOU can grab a great deal
Travel, the saying goes, broadens the mind. But it's not just the act of travelling itself - it's the planning too.
Apple To White-Label Google's Gemini Model for Next-Generation Siri, Report Says
Apple is paying Google to create a custom Gemini-based model that will run on the company's private cloud servers and power the next version of Siri, according to Bloomberg. The decision marks a departure from Apple's tradition of building core technologies in-house. The arrangement follows a competition Apple held this year between Anthropic and Google, the report said. Anthropic offered a superior model, but Google made more financial sense because of the tech giants' existing search relationship. Neither company is expected to discuss the partnership publicly, the report added.
The new Siri will introduce AI-powered web search and other features users have come to expect from voice assistants. The custom model will not flood Siri with Google services or Gemini features already available on Android devices. Instead, it will provide the underlying AI capabilities through an Apple user interface. The company is betting heavily on the revamped Siri to undo years of brand damage.
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TOWIE's Georgia Kousoulou set to have surgery after finding lump
She has warned her followers to always check for lumps and get checked by a doctor
Five tourists among seven killed when avalanche obliterates Himalayan climbers' base camp
Seven people died in total, including one Canadian, one Italian, and two Nepali nationals, a police official told local media. The avalanche struck a camp on Yalung Ri Himal mountain.
Trump stuns 60 Minutes' Norah O'Donnell as he breaks terrifying news about China and Russia nukes
Confusion has surrounded Trump's order that the United States begin testing, particularly if he meant conducting the country's first nuclear explosion since 1992.
Carly Rae Jepsen is pregnant: Call Me Maybe singer expecting first child one month after shock wedding
Carly Rae Jepsen is expecting her first child with new husband Cole M.G.N.
Joey Barton 'crossed the line between free speech and crime' with posts calling Jeremy Vine 'a bike nonce' and linking female football commentators Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West, court hears
Joey Barton was today accused of embarking on a pre-calculated campaign of gross and hateful 'personal slurs,' including claiming Jeremy Vine had a sexual interest in children.
Internet Archive's Legal Fights Are Over, But Its Founder Mourns What Was Lost
The Internet Archive celebrated archiving its trillionth webpage last month and received congratulations from San Francisco, which declared October 22 "Internet Archive Day." Senator Alex Padilla designated the nonprofit a federal depository library. The organization currently faces no major lawsuits and no active threats to its collections. But these victories arrived after years of bruising copyright battles that forced the removal of more than 500,000 books from the Archive's Open Library. "We survived, but it wiped out the Library," founder Brewster Kahle told ArsTechnica.
In 2024, the Archive lost its final appeal in a lawsuit brought by book publishers over its e-book lending model. Damages could have topped $400 million before publishers announced a confidential settlement. Last month, the organization settled another suit over its Great 78 Project after music publishers sought damages of up to $700 million. That settlement was also confidential. In both cases, the Archive's experts challenged publishers' estimates as massively inflated.
Kahle had envisioned the Open Library as a way for Wikipedia to link to book scans and help researchers reference e-books. The Archive wanted to deepen Wikipedia's authority as a research tool by surfacing information often buried in books. "That's what they really succeeded at -- to make sure that Wikipedia readers don't get access to books," Kahle said of the publishers. He thinks "the world became stupider" when the Open Library was gutted. The Archive is now expanding Democracy's Library, a free online compendium of government research and publications that will be linked in Wikipedia articles.
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Mini Cooper slips into sinkhole but officials can't remove it - in case THEIR rescue vehicles fall in
The car became trapped when the ground underneath it gave way on Saturday afternoon outside Berrymans Bakery in Redruth, Cornwall.
Why King will bankroll 'pampered' Andrew's new Sandringham home and won't completely strip him of his life of luxuries
Royal biographer Tina Brown believes the monarch has an interest in bankrolling Andrew's 5-star lifestyle away from Windsor's Royal Lodge to keep him quiet.
Holly Ramsay packs on PDA with fiancé Adam Peaty in loved-up snap and gushes 'I can't wait to be your wife' as their lavish Christmas wedding draws closer
The influencer, 25, and the Olympic swimmer, 30, announced their engagement in September last year after three years of dating , and are set to tie the knot this Christmas .
Former chaplain to late Queen was snared in paedophile sting after sending indecent messages to who he thought was a teenage boy
A former chaplain to the late Queen admitted sending indecent messages to a person he believed to be a 14-year-old boy, a court was told.
Taxi driver who claimed David Lammy 'acted like a thug' amid chaotic taxi row is CLEARED of stealing the Deputy PM's luggage
Nassim Mimun, 40, was facing up to three years in prison when he went on trial at the Bonneville Criminal Court, in eastern France, on Monday.
British train 'knifeman' is pictured for the first time: Suspect, 32, appears in court accused of train rampage that left 11 hurt and another attack in London hours earlier
Anthony Williams, 32, of Peterborough, has appeared at Peterborough magistrates' court charged with 11 counts of attempted murder.
Irish 'Maradona of hurling' who faked cancer by 'shoving an iPhone cable up his nose' and conned friends and family out of £345,000 is sentenced to more than five years in jail
Ex-Kilkenny hurler, DJ Carey, 54, pleaded guilty in July to 10 counts of inducing people to give him money after fraudulently claiming to have cancer.