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This Company Has Built a Profile On Every American Adult (bloomberg.com)
Reader schwit1 writes: Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They'll be watching you. IDI, a year-old company in the so-called data-fusion business, is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers. The Boca Raton, Fla., company's database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data. Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says the system isn't waiting for requests from clients -- it's already built a profile on every American adult, including young people who wouldn't be swept up in conventional databases, which only index transactions. 'We have data on that 21-year-old who's living at home with mom and dad,' he says.
To get some good privacy laws passed?
'Cause it really creeps me out that a coupon site is being used to confirm information. And aside from that aspect, which seems to be setup to prey on the poor and less fortunate, that the company
"...including young people who wouldnâ(TM)t be swept up in conventional databases...".
That says to me they're going after children under 18 and doing so on purpose.
Of course they'd not show an example to the reporter. That'd either expose some proprietary info or that they're full of shit. Either way, this thing should be shut down.
Um no. They aren't the first. There are many. Acxiom is the biggest and has been doing it for over 50 years. This sounds like someone new looking to get some VC money.
This maybe possibly be the best post I have ever read on Slashdot.
I really envy your European life where you can be hauled in to court and jailed for speaking critically of EU immigration policy.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Good. Keep building those databases. Hoover up as much data as you can. Soon it won't be worth the disk drives you're storing it on.
I still get plenty of companies trying to sell me an extended warranty on a car I haven't owned in years.
I still get plenty of companies trying to sell me services for a job I haven't had in more than a decade.
It's cheap and easy to get data. It's hard and expensive to keep it clean. A few more years of this explosive growth in personal data availability and it will all turn to garbage.
I don't recall signing an authorization for my data to be used this way. Nor did I engage in informed consent with any of the vendors that have disclosed this information to this third party--how about we just figure out who is selling them data and sue a few of them into bankruptcy? It'll scare away other potential sellers and take this predatory organization down.
Who did what now?
Big Bad Government won't prevent you from going to the school of your choice.
Or buying a first home
Or getting a car loan
or asking for a raise
But these people will, if there is enough profit in offering a dataset that maximizes someone else's profit at your expense.