Inside One of the World's Largest Data Brokers

itwbennett writes "Contrary to recent reports, data broker Acxiom is not planning to give consumers access to all the information they've collected on us. That would be too great a challenge for the giant company, says spokesperson Alexandra Levy. Privacy blogger Dan Tynan recently spoke with Jennifer Barrett Glasgow, Chief Privacy Officer at Acxiom (she claims to be the very first CPO) about how the company collects information and what they do with it. This should give you some small measure of comfort: 'We don't know that you bought a blue shirt from Lands End. We just know the kinds of products you are interested in. We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do,' says Glasgow."

Comments

Untrue

[evanism]

They know everything. Not just the shirt, but how you paid, the brand, how much it was, its size and all the alternatives that were available at the time in the store.

I worked in a project with them for years and I can tell you they have every last scintilla of every purchase you have EVER made with an EFTPOS or credit card.

They, like Kang, Know All.

Re:Untrue

[OhANameWhatName]

I worked in a project with them for years

Something tells me you're about to get arrested and electro-shocked to erase Acxiom's corporate secrets.

Re:Untrue

[Required Snark]

Yes, she's lying her teeth out.

Recently I needed a car tow on the weekend. It took me about two and a half hours to get home. When I arrived I immediately went to send out email and I was getting targeted adds for used Mercedes cars and auto loans. They don't need to bother implanting a tracking chip. It would be redundant.

Re:Untrue

[cultiv8]

This. I worked with JP Morgan Chase for a brief stint and they sent us to Acxiom for week-long training on how they do data collection and what we could do with it. One of the stories they shared was how if a product was purchased at a Disney store and that same account had previous purchases for children's toys, then we could correlate that account with an address and send the address an offer for a Disney-branded Visa or Mastercard. If I remember right there were over 500 data points on households, not including transaction histories.

Re:Untrue

[cultiv8]

I hate to respond to my own comment and I know this is blatently trollish, but incase you're wondering, Marketwatch reports that Facebook recently partnered with Acxiom "to enable marketers to incorporate off-Facebook purchasing data in order to deliver more relevant ads to users".

They don't know what I like

[OhANameWhatName]

We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do

I like to have my privacy respected. I've willingly shared this information with Acxiom, but apparently my primary interest isn't valuable for Acxiom to understand. Companies like Acxiom deserve to have their corporate systems pillaged and this data handed out willy nilly to whomever the pillagers associate with .. without recrimination. Because this is PRECISELY how Acxiom operates.

If our political systems weren't so ridiculously corrupt, Acxiom's board and upper management would have been against the wall long ago. It's about time that companies like Acxiom were targetted by righteous hackers and their corrupt business practices exposed for the entire world to see.

Breach of DPA?

[L4t3r4lu5]

You are required, by law, to allow access to the data held on an individual in order to check for accuracy and relevance to purpose. If you don't do that, you're in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Give me access to my data.

Ingenous claims?

[Bearhouse]

FTA: "Acxiom data can’t be used for employment background checks, credit verification, or insurance underwriting, she adds, because that would make it a consumer reporting company under Fair Credit Report Act. Companies regulated under the FCRA can’t use that data for marketing purposes."

Urm, "Chinese walls", anyone? Want to bet that they don't sell that information to other people for doing exactly that?

In Europe , that would be criminal

[gweihir]

If you cannot tell people exactly what data you have collected about them, you are not allowed to collect that data. Penalties up to 2 years imprisonment apply. (Well, it is Europe, so I doubt anybody has been sent to prison yet for breach of data privacy laws, but still....) And they would also have to delete any and all data on request from the people that data is about. Cannot do it? Sorry, your business Model is criminal.