Is it just me or is this shocking? A company that has been at the forefront of promoting identity theft awareness (and profiting from it) for many years is effectively being shut down. They have been lauded and made famous by the act of posting the CEO's social security number on their website. That is not the problem, however.

A California Judge ruled the whole idea of their business is illegal. LifeLock would place fraud alerts on their customers credit profiles if there was suspicious activity so the customer didn't have to do it themselves. LifeLock was accused of trying to "game the system" by one of the three big credit reporting bureaus, Experian. The service cost consumers $120 a year.

Experian claimed this is illegal because LifeLock was engaging in unlawful and unfair business practices under California's Unfair Competition Law. Experian said they were losing millions of dollars every year in processing unwarranted suspicious accounts put through by LifeLock.

I don't want to get too deep into the legality of this situation, but I wonder what impact, if any, it will have on the future of identity theft for the average consumer. Some say it is a devastating blow, others say it is actually good for consumers. "[Consumers] still retain the right to make an independent judgment as to whether or not it is appropriate to place a fraud alert on their credit reports" said the director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

I don't think it is a devastating blow, but a curious one. The overall impact is yet to be seen, but I don't think LifeLock provided a particularly important service, but where they succeeded was in awareness. They were great at educating people about the risks of identity theft and for that they will be missed, if they go away (which is a distinct possibility).