Equifax Inc's

The market for our products and services is highly competitive and is subject to constant change. Our competitors vary widely in size and the nature of the products and services they offer. Sources of competition are numerous and include the following:

Competition for our consumer information solutions and personal solutions products varies by both application and industry, but generally includes two global consumer credit reporting companies, Experian Group and TransUnion LLC, both of which offer a product suite similar to our credit reporting solutions, and LifeLock, a national provider of personal identity theft protection products, as well as emerging competitors offering free credit scores. There are also a large number of competitors who offer competing products in specialized areas (such as fraud prevention, risk management and application processing and decisioning solutions) and software companies offering credit modeling services or analytical tools. We believe that our products offer our clients an advantage over those of our competitors because of the depth and breadth of our consumer information files, which we believe to be superior in terms of accuracy, coverage and availability. Other differentiators include our decisioning technology and the features and functionality of our analytical services. Our competitive strategy is to emphasize improved decision-making and product quality while remaining competitive on price. Our marketing services products also compete with the foregoing companies and others who offer demographic information products, including Acxiom Corporation, Harte-Hanks, Inc. and infoGROUP, Inc. We also compete with Fair Isaac Corporation with respect to certain of our analytical tools.

Competition for our commercial solutions products primarily includes Experian, The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation and Cortera, Inc., and providers of these services in the international markets we serve. We believe our access to and knowledge of U.S. small business loan information from financial institutions combined with our consumer credit information in the case of small business owners enables more efficient and effective decision-making for the small business segment of that market.

Competition for our employment and income verification services includes large employers who serve their own needs through in-house systems to manage verification as well as regional online verification companies, such as Verify Jobs and First Advantage, who offer verification services along with other human resources and tax services. Competition for Employer Services includes payroll processors such as Automatic Data Processing, Inc., or ADP, Paychex, Inc. and Ceridian Corporation. Competitors of our Tax Management Services include in-house management of this function primarily by large employers, ADP, and a number of smaller regional firms that offer tax management services (including Barnett Associates, Thomas & Thorngren, and UC Advantage).

While we believe that none of our competitors offers the same mix of products and services as we do, certain competitors may have a larger share of particular geographic or product markets or operate in geographic areas where we do not currently have a presence.

We assess the principal competitive factors affecting our markets to include: product attributes such as quality, depth, coverage, adaptability, scalability, interoperability, functionality and ease of use; product price; technical performance; access to unique proprietary databases; availability in application service provider, or ASP, format; quickness of response, flexibility and client services and support; effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts; existing market penetration; new product innovation; and our reputation as a trusted steward of information.