There are the firms and sites that compile public data about you and offer it up to anyone, and then there are the data brokers quietly sketching a picture of you from your purchases and behaviors. You should know what they know about you.
Non-profit journalism center ProPublica details the business and craft of data brokering, in which layer upon layer of information is compiled to sell to marketing firms. Often times the profiles are unnamed, but if you're wondering why your junk mail and back-of-receipt coupons seem so specific lately, it's because you're not that hard to figure out. Register for a Disney vacation, for example, and a whole bunch of subsidiaries get an idea of what you might like:
(Disney) described sharing even more information: not just a person's name and address and what they purchased, but their age, occupation, and the number, age and gender of their children. It listed companies that received data, among them companies owned by Disney, like ABC and ESPN, as well as others, including Honda, HarperCollins Publishing, Almay cosmetics, and yogurt company Dannon.
You can do something to cut back on your own data broker profile, even if you can't exactly clean the slate:
Some companies do offer more access. A spokeswoman for Epsilon said it allows consumers to review "high level information" about their data - like whether or not you're listed as making a purchase in the "home furnishings" category. (Requests to review this information cost $5 and can only be made by postal mail.)
RapLeaf, a company that advertises that it has "real-time data" on 80 percent of U.S. email addresses, says that it gives customers "total control over the data we have on you," and allows them to review and edit the categories (like "estimated household income" and "Likely Political Contributor to Republicans") that RapLeaf has connected with their email addresses.
If you've had experience with overly personalized marketing, or feel like it's being made into a bigger concern than it is, let's hear about it in the comments.
Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You | ProPublica
Original image via RapLeaf
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