Slashdot Mirror

Acxiom

They have for decades been gathering info on first the US and later the world. They get mailing lists from the US post office. They cut the binders off US phone books and scan them. They get all the info off those warranty cards you send in, and all sorts of creative sources of information on you.

Even the US used them after 9/11 to try to hunt down people.

Hell, even major credit card companies use them to clean their databases.

I think they even now maybe own one of the credit bureaus, like Trans Union. If not owning them they are very cozy in business or used to be.

Hell, companies like Acxiom have been doing this for decades before there was such a thing as Facebook.

FYI, the Feds actually used their services after 9/11....

Also it looks like they didn't have any choice as Equifax laughably appears to be the only company on their approved supplier list for this service

Aren't there like 3 of these major credit agencies?

Transunion...and another one.

I was about to say that the Feds have used Acxiom to clean up data before...but I think they may own Transunion, so, that might be redundant.

I'm pretty sure Acxiom did this LOOOOONG ago before this company did.

Yeah well, the company above didn't pay kickbacks and 'fees' to advertising companies like the one that owns slashdot to push their crappy stealth advertising on people.

If ever there was a company that needed hacked, cracked and whacked, it is this collection of arrogant assholes. Get it done.

Hell, back in the mid 90's I was helping on a project there to come up with a unique identifier and to build records upon that for every individual worldwide....

Way back when, they used to cut binders of phone books and scan them in for databases.

They get all the US Postal records, all states that publish/sell drivers license info...

They got info from all those little sheets you fill out when you send in a warranty card....etc.

They work with and clean up TransUnion and the other credit companies...and the credit card companies...etc.

Hell, the US Federal govt uses Acxiom to clean their databases for them, they did after 9/11 and I can guess they still are...

I'm sick of all the privacy warriors ruining all the cool shit that people come up with because of some fucked up fantasy that someone gives a shit about what people have stored on their computer. Newsflash: nobody does.

I beg to differ

So they have put it in charge of the guy from Nest, who pretty much is running the ship in such a way as to guarantee Google gets analytics about your household.

If they only wanted that, then the best thing they could do is get that household info from Acxiom ...they've been gathering that data on you for decades now. Not bad from a little company that came out of Conway, AR. I think they're still pretty much the definitive source of household (and a lot of other ) info in the US/World.

They already have info on most everyone in the US. Let them get the website going, they can hook in with Acxiom to pre-fill in what data Google has missing or wrong...and voila, the site could be up and running within about 2 months.

Not that I'm in favor of obamacare, mind you, but if they're gonna try to get expertise in getting large web based things to run and information gathering, why not go to some experts that get it right?

Nothing is unprecedented. The government has been collecting all of your data for years,

I would posit that the past collections, by different departments (that often consist off stove pipe systems that can't easily exchange info) was quite different than the large gathering now, along with wide spread aggregation of other govt (and some private systems I'm sure, remember them getting info from Acxiom ?)....tying it all together along with your health records and the short step to social accounts, etc?

No, I'd say this is one large step that is unprecedented. I'd imagine much of this info would be used to help "clean" up NSA gathered data for them.

On that note...an interesting article how Acxiom helps clean up data for others: LINK to article where Acxiom helps clean up your data for Facebook..

.
Marketeers like Acxiom and SurveySampling are probably lusting after the ability to link a MAC address to a social media account, or a person's demographics.

They could have purchased TomTom, for example and had everything up and running immediately.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. From Apple's mapping attribution page:

© 2006-2012 TomTom
Business listings data © Acxiom, 2012.
Map data © AND.
Property parcel data for USA. © CoreLogic Inc., 2012.
Satellite imagery data © DigitalGlobe, 2012.
Map and postal data © DMTI, 2012. This software contains Postal Code OM Data copied by Apple under a sub-license from DMTI Spatial Inc., a party directly licensed by Canada Post Corporation. The Canada Post Corporation file from which this data was copied is dated 2012.
Business listings data © Factual 2012.
Map data © Getchee, 2012.
© INCREMENT P CORP., 2012, http://www.incrementp.co.jp/gc01info/e/legal01.html.
Map data © Intermap, 2012.
Map data © LeadDog, 2012.
Business listings data © Localeze, 2012.
Mapping data for Australia and New Zealand. © MapData Services Pty Ltd., 2012, PSMA http://www.nowwhere.com.au/lic/NowWhereLic.htm.
Map data © MDA Information Systems, Inc., 2012.
Neighborhood data © Urban Mapping, 2012.
Map data © 2012 Waze.
âoeReviews from Yelpâ Yelp, 2012.
(CanVec)
© Department of Natural Resources Canada. All rights reserved.
http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html
(CGIAR-CSI SRTM)
CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/
Flickr Shapefiles Public Dataset, Version 1.0, http://www.flickr.com/
(GeoNames)
GeoNames and contributors, http://www.geonames.org.
(GlobCover)
© ESA 2010 and UCLouvain, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.nasa.gov

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2012. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

(OSDM)
© Commonwealth of Australia, 2012. This data has been used with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this software, and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose. http://spatial.gov.au

(OSM)
OpenStreetMap contributors, http://www.openstreetmap.org/
(StatCan)
Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca
(TIGER/Line® fi

They don't sell your data to customers, that would be illegal.

You must be in Europe.....

In the US, it is perfectly legal to sell all your data to customers, in fact, there are MANY companies that do just thing....Acxiom is one such example, they have information on likely 98% of the US, and decades ago, they were just then starting to branch out to other countries, I'm pretty sure they have succeeded by now on that front too.

Not exactly. If you just had a list of numbers that happened to be CC numbers you might be right. But if you had what is typically a list of stolen CC numbers, i.e. a listing of names, billing addreesses, numbers, ccv numbers, date of birth, etc. then you have personal information on people with no provable right to possess it.

Err....and exactly WHAT laws in the US, state you have to have a proveable 'right' to possess personal information on people??

That's likely to be news to companies, like Acxiom in Arkansas...that gather and maintain (and sell) this information daily...with no special dispensation from the government.

No....just possessing this, storing it, manipulating it..is not a crime.

There no such privacy laws in the US that prohibit this as far as I know...if you know better, please, provide links to such....

Companies like Acxiom do this all the time.

In fact..likely as not, facebook already uses them to help 'clean' data....lots of companies do like Visa, etc...

What do you think would happen to that corporation if it came out they were tracking everybody like this? They'd be run out of business quite fast.

False. Acxiom for example collects incredibly detailed dossiers on every American citizen, ostensibly for "marketing" purposes. But you can bet your last dollar they have some big, fat pipes from their datacenter up to McLean & Ft. Meade.

So why don't consumers run this kind of company out of business? It's simple - these businesses make money from the purchasers of the dossiers, not from the citizens who are tracked against their will. There is basically no legal way, and certainly no way that is practical for an ordinary citizen, to avoid being tracked.

But, what's to stop law enforcement to start outsourcing more and more and more to 'private' businesses to spy on people and do their work for them?

We see this type thing already with the feds...they have trouble getting their own 'national big brother database' going (at least publicly), so they use private companies to get around this, like Acxiom . They used them in a big way for sure shortly after 9/11...and they're a good source too. They have lots of info on at least 98% of the people in the US, and I have no idea how much on peoples outside the US borders.

You are so correct. Back when I used to work at Acxiom...way back...we were working THEN to devising a way to generate a unique identifier for every US citizen out there. Something we could used to track people as they moved, changed names, etc...basically to track them from birth to death. More than a decade ago, we had information on like 95% or more of the people in the US, and were starting to track people in the UK, and other nations.

Heck, after 9/11 the Feds used them to try to get info on terrorists, etc...and US citizens. Hell, I've seen a video of Charles talking about it.

I'd have to guess with all the information they have from so many sources (among which are the USPO change of address forms, states that sell drivers licenses, any time you send in a warranty card, etc)...if they could hook it to Google information, it would be a literal gold mine of info. I'd almost have to guess someone has thought about combining them already by this point in time.

Actually....SSN is not a very good choice to use for a primary key for identifying people. It is not 100% unique to people. There are people, for religious reasons, that do not have one. People can apply for and change SSN's...there are 'special' ssn's assigned to foreign workers, and even ones that are more than 9 digits to foreign military personnel assigned to our military bases for periods..etc. Hell, to this day, there are still people out there, that when they bough wallets back in the 50's and 60's...that had 'fake' credit cards and social security cards in them, thought that was how they go their number assigned...and still use them.

Not to mention how that many illegal aliens are using fraudulent SSN's of fake, dead and real living people. No, it is not a good primary key for people.

When I worked at Acxiom many moons ago...we learned not to use that there...and they are the commercial big brother of the US, and other parts of the world. When I was there...we were trying to come up with our own unique identifier for everyone in the US, and then even foreign countries that we could use to track people from birth to death no matter what name or address changed...etc. I can only guess they have something like that now. Back then we had pretty good info on about 98% of the people in the US, and were starting to expand outside the US borders on info gathered and tracked. Hell, after 9/11 the feds used Acxiom for help on data for private citizens.

Anyway...I don't like to give out my SSN at all unless for taxation purposes. I've had my identity stolen twice...and while I was lucky that it didn't hurt me any...it makes me cautious. And...the more places that have info like this one you, makes more places that can leak or lose or have info on you stolen...which can harm you.

I'm not paranoid, but, I also do find it best to do like Monty Python said...and know the importance of not being seen.

:)

Yep...it already does. Mostly by a company called Acxiom . They actually work very closely with Equifax and Transmeta...they have data on pretty much 99% of the people in the US, and are working hard to do the same around the world. Back when I worked there...a long time ago, we were working to come up with a unique identifier for every person in the US to track them for life. This helps to clean up other companies' databases, etc.

In recent years, since the Feds are still somewhat prohibited from gathering lots of data on people, they contacted and used Acxiom to do it for them.

They gather data from all sources...warranty cards, drivers license...USPO change of address data...etc. I'll bet no one ever would have guessed Big Brother was going to be located in Conway and Little Rock, AR, eh?

Actually, companies respecting the privacy of their customers, it a bit of a new thing, and not observed by all of them. Many companies make a GREAT deal of money gathering, storing and selling data like this. This company has made tons of money over there years gathering and buying data from all sorts of companies, to market, sell...and use to clean other company's databases.

Additionally, insurance companies could drop you if they found out, for exaple, you were out drinking 3 nights a week.

If this info gets out it could have a huge impact on people."

I've been worried for years that they can do the same...even MORE damage with the grocery store courtesy cards. With these, they can track all kinds of purchases...smokes, booze, crab treatments..etc.

I'm sure some enterprising person in the insurance industry by now has thought to try to buy this from the stores....and run it against their databases of people to look for dangerous, risky behavior by their insured.

We need to quickly pass some consumer privacy rights laws here, and shut down this industry that sells information about you to anyone. Hell, some states are STILL selling drivers license info to companies like Acxiom ...who track and store and sell your info to anyone that wants to buy it.

For once, a law I applaud, I only wish (at least in the US) that they would take this law and expand on it. Make it illegal for ANY commercial (and possibly most govt.) entities from sharing your personal information without express consent. It sure would cut down on a lot of unpleasant things we have due to all the customer information sharing. Junk mail....credit card applications in the mail (unsolicited), marketing crap, etc, etc.

I'd like to see it extended particularly to the credit industry! Make it MUCH harder for people to do a credit check on you. Ok, I can see it for major purchases like a house, etc.....but, for freaking insurance or even in cases today, just applying for a JOB?!?!?

I doubt at this point though, something nice like that would come about...heck, this law came into effect WAY before terrorism was the fear dujour. Too much big money in collecting and selling personal information ....

Not to mention that the govt. now likes this, and can gather information on all of us via the private databases when public law/disfavor blocks them collecting it themselves.

Oh well....sure is nice to see that at least in one instance in the past...the govt. did pass a law to try to protect some private individual privacy rights from the corporate world.

I wonder how long before this law is deemed an obstruction to Homeland Security needs?

Yes. This sort of thing (including communications interception) has been going on for decades between many countries.

Not just companies. There are rules about what kind of information can and can't be collected by the US government about its citizens. An obstacle to total information awareness? Not in this privatize-everything administration. Instead, the government simply subcontracts to obscure private data-mining companies such as this one who CAN collect any kind of information about us. The private contractors do all the work, the government doesn't break the law. Perfect right? Y'know, like privatizing the army? What could go wrong?

(though I am in basically the Arkansas of Japan, but even when I lived in Osaka, I felt like this was true).

People in Arkansas are not necessarily low-tech. There's a low cost of living in Arkansas that allows most households to acquire high-tech gadgets and PC's.

I live in a small town in a economically underdeveloped part of Arkansas, and even here, very few people don't use technology. Almost every household has multiple cell phones and a PC with some sort of internet connection. Granted, there are probably a lot of people in Arkansas that still use dial-up because there's not broadband available, but I'd say a majority of the small towns (populations < 2000) offer cable or dsl internet service.

Arkansas is also the home of Wal-Mart, which has been selling several brands of PCs since the mid-90's. You also can't find a Wal-Mart without a kiosk that's offering the latest cell phones.

You might also be surprised at some of the large tech companies based in Arkansas: Acxiom, Alltel (they don't just do wireless service!), and of course, Wal-Mart... these are just a few.

Think of your DNA profile as a credit card that cannot be cancelled in the event of loss or misuse, and guard it accordingly."

I agree whole heartedly. There are states that gladly sell your drivers license information to private companies ( Acxiom for example). What would keep them from selling it like that information?

I'd certainly had for DNA of everyone to get out. The insurance companies alone would have a field day. You think it is hard now to get private insurance, if you have a pre-existing condition or something like high triglycerides? (I know about the latter one well), well, wait till they can pre-screen your DNA to find out what you might be afflicted with in the future.

And if your identity is stolen....or something bad is associated with your DNA profile....good luck getting that taken care of. Either people will be screwed for life (you can well change your DNA), or DNA will cease to be an important determining factor. The latter may happen, but, probably LONG after many people have their lives ruined. Talk about the ultimate biometric factor...

It's too late. Places like Axciom already aggregate and sell this information. If you've bought two products from vendors that cooperate with Axciom (and they are well paid to cooperate), and you each email address on a different order, you're already hosed. They have already given everyone a number and started associated all the little bits of data they can get their hands on to form a complete consumption profile.

Let me add Acxiom to the list, the largest data mining company in the world. Acxiom, with their massive server farms, collect detailed personal information on everything from age to income and shopping habits, and divide consumer groups into one of 70 "lifestage segments". These lifestage segments might be location or hobbies, products bought, charities donated to - or all of the above. This information is purchased by the US government as well as many North American firms with products to market and sell.

There are companies out there that do this VERY efficiently already like Acxiom . They take information from Visa and other credit card companies...the credit buearu's like Trans Union and the like (heck, they may own part of them by now), data from driver's licenses from states that sell them, USPS change of address forms, warranty registration for all kinds of products you buy...etc. and meld them together to sell to companies to merchandise to you, or they 'clean their databases' for them with this data. It is pretty accurate, and they have information I think on about 98% of US citizens...everything from all addresses you've ever lived...financial situation...how many kids you have...if you wear glasses or not.

So, it already has been done, heck if the Feds were smart, they'd just outsource to a company like this.

Why is this any different than any other organization pulling my credit report?

Maybe because, contrary to recent efforts to make you think otherwise, the government isn't "like any other organization"?

Of course, those things the government can't do themselves, they just hire contracted corporations to do for them.

It's actually quite unnerving how much information (both in terms of quantity and quality) they have about every such user. It would be possible for them to create a more or less accurate psychological profile of an 'active' user cross-reference with what appears to be his/her hobbies, habits, even daily schedules and pinpoint his/her exact location (at work or at home) at any given time he uses one of their increasing number of services. Now who or what is to guarantee this information is not going to fall into the wrong hands? What if a hacker (rogue blackhat, CIA, the Russian FSB or whatever) gains access to critical information stored on Google Servers? What if a corporation like Time Warner buys up Google (and expands its board of directors with less 'ethical' ones)? What if Google chooses to really cooperate with governments to comply with local laws put into place to fight 'dissidents' or 'terrorists'?

Just wait for active census. You are actually worried about the wrong company. Google may have the data, but would use it to craft better ads. It's companies like http://www.acxiom.com/ that you really need to worry about. Acxiom has access to all sorts of public data. It'll only be a matter of time until several companies or the government pays them to do something like this. I think of Google's data collection in the same manner as Walmart's data collection. Walmart has the data sitting around of what you buy every purchase. They could come up with an individual or household profile that lists all purchased goods at Walmart. Any one that pays in credit card, debit card, or check should be easy to match up and create a profile. Those that always pay cash would be different, but they have security cameras on all the cashiers and the entrance/exit. In theory they could match up a visual profile of who paid cash.

Here is a better one though, Walmart or other stores could also start tracking you by license plate of the vehicle that you get into. I've seen devices in the $20-$30K range that can already scan license plates and cross check them with a downloaded copy of stolen vehicles from NCIC. Companies don't currently have access to NCIC lookups, but they don't need them. Remember if you pay in credit card, debit card, or check then in theory the company should have a record of your address. They could use that address with the vehicle license plate and if they get vehicle model id down then they could use that to estimate how much disposable income that you have based on the estimated blue book of the car. The price would have to come down to atleast 1/10 of current prices before companies start to think about spying on all their consumers. How long do you think that will take?

Personally, I think that the US government needs to revise its census laws/rules and start working to develop an "active census" to determine the estimated "long form" info on every individual in the US at near real-time. Our founding fathers couldn't envision the tech or the resources that we have today. We could literally start trying and actually have a real-time census within 5-10 years if we really wanted it. The next census may be the classical census, but how long do you think that it will be before either companies or the government develops active census?

I used to work for a company called Acxiom , and they are a good bet to be where this info came from. I used to work on a project where we got phone books from all over the nation, and cut the binders off, ran through an OCR, and then sorted into a databases. They have databases from all sources and try to 'clean' them all out...they get info from Post Office Change of Address forms...states that sell drivers license info....They work closely with a couple of the credit companies, they might even partly own Trans Union, I'm not sure the exact assoc. they have with them.

But, yeah, I do the same thing for the phone books, and get amused when I get junk mail to that false name...knowing where it came from. When telemarketers used to call asking for that name, was funny since I knew where they got it from.

Yup...heck, if they connect to Acxiom's databases...they'll already have about all the info on US citizens they need.

They get records from all types of sources, US Postal change of address, states that sell drivers licenses, phone books, warranty cards...etc.

Does this mean companies are hoping to sell more than "You looked better on MySpace" t-shirts http://www.hottopic.com/store/product.asp?LS=0&ITE M=299338 ?

Seriously though, how is this any worse than dataminers like Axciom http://www.acxiom.com/, or Wal-Mart having the world's larget database http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1675960,00.as p of point-of-sale data? I can't imagine the trash you'd have to wade through to get some reliable marketing data. And if that happens, we'll just see bots that create fake MySpace pages to inflate the numbers-- the same way we now see blog spam and fake blogs with product information.

OH....so you used to work at Acxiom too?

That said, I think the entire site has some good and some bad in it, of course. The site is a great place for people to find others with similar interests, as a prior poster mentioned. Just like some people join clubs with the purpose of finding friends, myspace is just another "club."

I've never been a strictly private person, keeping myself cloistered from human contact seemed foolish to me and I usually give away a bunch of details about my life, but nothing on the scale of most of the people on Myspace. That is the key to the whole thing though.

The difference between a club and Myspace is that Myspace is often times freakishly personal, to the point where it seems like the person posting has absolutely no concept of privacy. Just like "Reality" televison, this is perhaps a symptom of our voyeur society.

Have you ever have to stop when driving because everyone is looking at the scene of the crash? Ever watch the news, where most of the stuff they report is gruesome in order to capture your attention? (There is a lot to the news, this is just ONE aspect of it. If you want to bash the news, don't do it for JUST this reason.)

This extends beyond just individuals too! The Information Age has seen the rise of the internet, of things like Google, but it has also spawned companies like Acxiom. Acxiom's mission is to "create and deliver customer and information management solutions that enable many of the largest, most respected companies in the world to build great relationships with their customers. Acxiom achieves this by blending data, technology and services to provide the most advanced customer information infrastructure available in the marketplace today." http://www.acxiom.com/default.aspx?ID=1636&Display ID=18

It should be obvious to people that there are giant databases out there storing everything from what we buy to where we live, what our houses are worth, who are neighbors are, what kind of reputation we have, etc... The entire industry is dedicated to voyeurism, and of course they get away with it. Myspace is just another example of all this.

Okay, the "playing bass in a band and sleeping on strange people's floors" provides much better context.

And I had wondered why a physics major would have been "lucky" to get a job as a database gearhead in 1997, at the very nascence of the great dot-com bubble.

But now it all makes sense.

Fair enough. Actually, the chain of events went Physics degree -> playing bass in a band and sleeping on strange people's floors -> working at http://www.acxiom.com/ -> then moving on. So, I guess I needed some stability at the time. I considered continuing on with physics, but I really don't think I was cut out for it. I'm guessing most people don't stumble into a degree in physics, but I did somehow. At Acxiom I managed the marketing database for Schering-Plough for roughly 2 years and then moved into application programming, and then quit. I actually really enjoyed the work while at acxiom. The large corp thing was pretty depressing. But, heh, you can always quit...and I did.

Have you seen what a sample background report looks like? Everything imaginable is on it : http://www.acxiom.com/default.aspx?ID=2152&Country _Code=USA

Your criminal history, driving record, credit history and info about personal finances, employment history, where you went to school, lawsuits you've been in, type of car you own...

Yeah..this is something I fear. I was reading in the local paper recently...that this could really crush SMALL businesses, that may do simple things like directly charging customers' checking accounts. Basically, this notification could really open so many up to lawsuits, and in our present ligitious society these days...well, I think that is a given.

Personally, I wish they'd go in the direction of outlawing, the wholesale trading and selling of personally identifiable information...especially the Social Security number...

I wish they's make it illegal to use it as an identifier in any public database not directly associated with SS taxable income.

If they didn't have the one person unique identifier out there in so many of these databases...that link so much information together over disparate databases, the theft perhaps wouldn't be as painful or dangerous to the individual.

I wish they'd make the selling of this data illegal..companies like Acxiom scare me really...they have info on most anyone in the US, and when I'd left there years ago, their computer security to the 'net wasn't secure enough to ease my concerns. And they're not the only ones...just one of the big ones.

Dude...happens all the time. Take a look at Acxiom Corporation . That IS their business. I used to work there way back. They take information on people from the US, and when I left from around the world too...and put it together in massive databases. They get this info from states that sell drivers license info, US postal change of address forms, those mailers you send in for 'warranties'...hell, one project was ordering phone books from around the country, cutting the bindings off, running them through OCR's, and sorting and putting that info into databases. They used these databases to actually (for a fee) cleanse other companies' databases. They clean Visa and other databases all the time...they feed the credit unions...I know they had a close relationship with Trans Union back then.

They have information put together on a large (upper 90%) of everyone in the US. We were working on plans years ago to try to generate a unique ID of our own to track people in the US as they moved...got married...etc.

Heck, we had info on people with SS, income...and even if you wore glasses or not.

Trust me...there are companies that aggregate this data all up and down, all perfectly legal. Back when I was there...we were working on doing the same to people's data in Europe and other places on the globe.

I'm going to opt-out from all of the databases I can think of. With any luck, they'll honor the request. You can start by sending an opt-out request to optoutUS@acxiom.com. (Hopefully they won't spam me). Next up: The Direct Marketers' Association.

One of my first jobs was running some hot laser printers for a junk mailer. I believe we used lists from Acxiom. The most damage you could do with one of these lists would be to shill for publishers clearing house. No identity theft with this list.

Ya think maybe they don't sell the full details to junk mailers who only want to do mailing lists?

Wake me when it's a credit card/banking database.

Acxiom does have services customized to Financial Services, Healthcare and Insurance, among others. I bet they use more than mailing labels to "Analyze data and target prospects with the same characteristics as your most profitable customers." It'd be interesting to know what information helps "Create a 360-degree view of healthcare customers."

One of my first jobs was running some hot laser printers for a junk mailer. I believe we used lists from Acxiom. The most damage you could do with one of these lists would be to shill for publishers clearing house. No identity theft with this list.

Ya think maybe they don't sell the full details to junk mailers who only want to do mailing lists?

Wake me when it's a credit card/banking database.

Acxiom does have services customized to Financial Services, Healthcare and Insurance, among others. I bet they use more than mailing labels to "Analyze data and target prospects with the same characteristics as your most profitable customers." It'd be interesting to know what information helps "Create a 360-degree view of healthcare customers."

One of my first jobs was running some hot laser printers for a junk mailer. I believe we used lists from Acxiom. The most damage you could do with one of these lists would be to shill for publishers clearing house. No identity theft with this list.

Ya think maybe they don't sell the full details to junk mailers who only want to do mailing lists?

Wake me when it's a credit card/banking database.

Acxiom does have services customized to Financial Services, Healthcare and Insurance, among others. I bet they use more than mailing labels to "Analyze data and target prospects with the same characteristics as your most profitable customers." It'd be interesting to know what information helps "Create a 360-degree view of healthcare customers."

One of my first jobs was running some hot laser printers for a junk mailer. I believe we used lists from Acxiom. The most damage you could do with one of these lists would be to shill for publishers clearing house. No identity theft with this list.

Ya think maybe they don't sell the full details to junk mailers who only want to do mailing lists?

Wake me when it's a credit card/banking database.

Acxiom does have services customized to Financial Services, Healthcare and Insurance, among others. I bet they use more than mailing labels to "Analyze data and target prospects with the same characteristics as your most profitable customers." It'd be interesting to know what information helps "Create a 360-degree view of healthcare customers."

But they also do more respectable business. Like they used to manage Dillard's warehouse stock information. They'd kick the data around and tell them what's selling where, what to order more of, and where to ship it at what time of the year. Pretty cool stuff actually.

~LoudMusic

I live out here in Arknasas. One of the biggest consumer information collection companies, Acxiom is located over in Conway. I was bored and poking through the privacy policy on their web site and found out a couple of interesting things.

First, you can request a copy of the report that they have on you. Unfortunately, it costs you $5.00, but I'm interested to see what they already know about me... You can request a consumer report form by emailing consumerreport@acxiom.com. But if you'd rather not give your $5.00 to the evil empire, you can at least request that they refrain from selling your information by emailing optout@acxiom.com. I would have just opted out, but my curiousity got the better of me, so I sent off my five bucks.

I also don't know what I think about this from their web site:

"These databases are provided to qualified businesses primarily in the finance, insurance, mortgage, real estate and retail industries for the purpose of verifying information on customers, issuing mortgages, speeding up transactions, assisting law enforcement, reducing chance of fraud, and collecting delinquent accounts."

Guess the government doesn't need to collect the data itself, as long as the corporations make everything available. Guess Big Brother is watching...

I live out here in Arknasas. One of the biggest consumer information collection companies, Acxiom is located over in Conway. I was bored and poking through the privacy policy on their web site and found out a couple of interesting things.

First, you can request a copy of the report that they have on you. Unfortunately, it costs you $5.00, but I'm interested to see what they already know about me... You can request a consumer report form by emailing consumerreport@acxiom.com. But if you'd rather not give your $5.00 to the evil empire, you can at least request that they refrain from selling your information by emailing optout@acxiom.com. I would have just opted out, but my curiousity got the better of me, so I sent off my five bucks.

I also don't know what I think about this from their web site:

"These databases are provided to qualified businesses primarily in the finance, insurance, mortgage, real estate and retail industries for the purpose of verifying information on customers, issuing mortgages, speeding up transactions, assisting law enforcement, reducing chance of fraud, and collecting delinquent accounts."

Guess the government doesn't need to collect the data itself, as long as the corporations make everything available. Guess Big Brother is watching...

I live out here in Arknasas. One of the biggest consumer information collection companies, Acxiom is located over in Conway. I was bored and poking through the privacy policy on their web site and found out a couple of interesting things.

First, you can request a copy of the report that they have on you. Unfortunately, it costs you $5.00, but I'm interested to see what they already know about me... You can request a consumer report form by emailing consumerreport@acxiom.com. But if you'd rather not give your $5.00 to the evil empire, you can at least request that they refrain from selling your information by emailing optout@acxiom.com. I would have just opted out, but my curiousity got the better of me, so I sent off my five bucks.

I also don't know what I think about this from their web site:

"These databases are provided to qualified businesses primarily in the finance, insurance, mortgage, real estate and retail industries for the purpose of verifying information on customers, issuing mortgages, speeding up transactions, assisting law enforcement, reducing chance of fraud, and collecting delinquent accounts."

Guess the government doesn't need to collect the data itself, as long as the corporations make everything available. Guess Big Brother is watching...

Don't mind me, just feeding the spammers. A fitting response to this, no? I say post any address you can find on the acxiom servers to whatever spammer-infested medium you have access to.
a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c
a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c