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What Marketers Think They Know About You and What They Really Do

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-don't-even-know-you-anymore dept.

mattydread23 writes "Data broker Acxiom did something a little unusual this week. It launched a service that lets you see the data they've collected on you. CITEworld writer Ron Miller checked it out, and found it to be mostly laughably inaccurate. Among the things they got wrong included his religion, his interests, and the number of kids he has. But worst? It pegged him as a Windows user."

13 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. I'm not falling for that! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Thought I'd look at my own data, but when they started asking for the last 4 digits of my SSN I decided I didn't care so much about what they knew about me...

    1. Re:I'm not falling for that! by icebike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly.

      I looked at what they were asking for and realized I would be giving them things
      they don't know already. Why would I do that.

      ItsATrap.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:I'm not falling for that! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It will only be a matter of time until they find clustering algorithms that can separate your "interests".

      Basically it is like you have three clouds of points. One cloud is your interests. One cloud is for your wife, and one cloud is for your child. For a human, it is easy to tell these clouds apart. For a computer, it will soon be easy too.

      I was told by a retired jeweler in my neighborhood that being able to separate customers' "interests" has been a particularly acute problem in that sector for some time: Obviously, as with any business(especially one built on unnecessary luxury goods) they want to cultivate and flatter their good customers; but they ran into the persistent problem that some of their good customers had wives who did open marketing mail addressed to a household; but had not been the recipients of some or all of the jewelry purchased... That is, of course, awkward for all involved.

    3. Re:I'm not falling for that! by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't forget every insurance company those employers have ever provided benefits for, any bank you've ever had an account with, and if you've gone to college, they've got it, too -- and, if so, trust me, it's out there now.

  2. Seriously? by spudnic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And in order to see the data they have about me, I have to give them my name, home address, last four digits of my SSN? Seriously? They're going to make a fortune off of this!

    --
    load "linux",8,1
    1. Re:Seriously? by Intropy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Alright, here's what we know about you:

      Name, physical address, email address, and last four digits of your ssn.

      Gotcha!

    2. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yup, that surprised me as well. You serve ads to my browser, yet you can't identify me without me identifying myself? Fail.

    3. Re:Seriously? by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 5, Funny

      And you are +1 gullible

      Incorrect. The word "gullible" is deprecated. It was removed from all dictionaries years ago. Look it up.

      What you're thinking of is not "+1 gullible", but "doubleplus ungood thinking".

      Never gets old. My sister pulled the old "you know the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary" trick on a roommate long ago. Unlike you, roommate couldn't spell the word, attempted to look it up, failed, and declared "Oh my God, you're right!"

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
  3. Doesn't matter by Intropy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're not _really_ trying to figure out data about who you are because they don't really care. What they care about are what ads are most likely to affect you. That's a clustering problem not an identification problem. And if those clusters happen to have similarities to a well-defined, named demographic category that just helps humans talk about them.

  4. Give me the link! by bkk_diesel · · Score: 5, Informative

    I had to click through to a third page before getting a link to the relevant website.

    The Acxiom site is found at https://aboutthedata.com/.

    Privacy policy (FWIW) is here: https://aboutthedata.com/privacy/

  5. Easy by Alsee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What marketers know about me:
    He's running AdBlock.

    What marketers think they know:
    Everyone wants to see relevant ads.
    He's running AdBlock because he's annoyed that the ads he's been seeing aren't relevant enough.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  6. Click here to see what they have on you by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    TFA says:

    "Data broker Acxiom did something a little unusual this week. It launched a service that lets you see the data they've collected on you"

    Unfortunately that link got you to a page on www.citeworld.com which carries a link to www.nytimes.com

    After a wild goose chase I finally got that link ---

    https://aboutthedata.com/

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  7. Only a glimpse by rgrbrny · · Score: 5, Informative
    So, I read the article that the article links to--spare me the "you must be new here jokes"--and found this interesting bit:

    Although the site shows visitors a few facts that some might consider sensitive, like race and ethnicity, it initially omits, at least in the version I saw, intimate references — like “gambling,” “senior needs,” “smoker in the household” and “adult with wealthy parent” — that Acxiom markets to corporate clients but that might discomfit consumers if they knew they were for sale.

    So Axciom's transparency portal isn't so transparent at all...