Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

This Company Has Built a Profile On Every American Adult (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the big-brother-cares-about-you dept.

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.

3 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. So is this enough finally? by H3lldr0p · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Um no by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Ecouragement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.