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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.
Good luck finding me in my mom's basement!
Unless they've got gps chips and fingerprint scanners built into each dollar bill.
#DeleteChrome
Ironic. The link to the article begins by complaining about my use of an ad blocker in my browser. So what was newsworthy about that article again? Shameless linking of online behaviour and personality profile? You wonder how they got all that data.
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.
If I put up a chart of someone's activities, they call me a stalker, but if a company does it, it is called smart business. 2 sets of rules. Greed is great. Fuck me moar.
Is it legal to sell this information to anyone? Athletes license their image and likeness, receiving fees in return for the right to use them for monetization. Aside from public records, shouldn't I own the data about me, and thus be able to insist it not be sold without my consent? Shouldn't I legally own the rights to a profile about me?
Yes, only the government can do this
Regards, the nsa, cia, fbi, hls
I have a different idea. I think Congress should pass a law saying such information always remains your property, and that every access of it for the purposes of making profit by any authorized entity must see you paid 50% of the gross revenue generated. Unauthorized access sees you paid 95%. Lack of payment by any company is regarded as theft, and will be prosecuted as a criminal offense.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Unauthorized access sees you paid 95%.
Make that 5000% and we can start talking about there being some downsides to tracking (for the tracker).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
companies like this are also referred to as brand chasers or culture moguls, or brand identity teams. Every one of them touts the same crap, it just sounds like this one ran out of clients and is trying to court law enforcement that want to skirt the constitution.
is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers
bullshit. quantrics started this crap (technically socci too), then companies like Target, Ralphs, and Best Buy decided to bring it in house and make it proprietary, literally bankrupting them overnight.
The Boca Raton, Fla., company's database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data.
take a company, base it in boca or delaware, or branson, or somewhere mind-numbing data entry jobs pay nothing, and then spin it as a service that does (surprise) something that every modern corporation has been doing for 30 years. demographic and behavioral are so vague as to mean anything from "we had an elementary school focus group" to "we sit around and pay people to watch BET all day."
including young people who wouldn't be swept up in conventional databases
bingo, this is how you know its a bullshit target market research company. the blind spots of the 18-32 demographic are a gold mine businesses have been spending billions on for 25 years or longer. the truth is we really do not know why some of these audiences fail brand permanence, brand awareness, or our consumer confidence and profile metrics other than (gasp) they probably just arent interested in the product. but thats not good enough. middle manager mike needs you to buy the brand, and we need to pretend we have that solution.
'We have data on that 21-year-old who's living at home with mom and dad,'
yeah? so does everyone else. hes the fucking loss-leader and you work hard to exclude him from your brand experience. he has no pull with his parents (that ended at 17) and he has a caustic persona that can destroy the brand as any Axe bodyspray marketing team can attest to. You lump him into your 'subculture urban' market and bingo, youve just fucked an entire segment out of a product by appealing to something diametrically opposed to people with limited income. you can sell this guy credit cards and maybe some fast food...and thats about it. he downloads all his music, drives a 20 year old toyota, and plays freemium games on his iphone 4-5 waiting for his cheese to grill.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Why? You don't think there are data brokers in Europe??? Wow, so naive!
EU privacy laws hellloooooooo
"IDI, like much of the data-fusion industry, traces its lineage to Hank Asher, a former cocaine smuggler and self-taught programmer who began fusing sets of public data from state and federal governments in the early 1990s." ~snip~ "Asher’s disciples, including Dubner, left TLO and eventually teamed up with Michael Brauser, a former business partner of Asher’s, and billionaire health-care investor Phillip Frost. In May 2015, after a flurry of purchases and mergers, the group rebranded its database venture as IDI."
So in other words, our (and your children's) personal data is in the hands of cons, criminals and scam artists. Gee, what a comforting thought.
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???
Within the past few years, some former college football and basketball players sued the NCAA successfully. For over a decade, officially licensed college football and basketball games were produced by EA Sports. The games didn't include player names but the uniform numbers, positions, physical attributes, and player skills, which were clearly derived from the real athletes. No names or actual player photos were used, but the court still decided that everything else constituted an unauthorized use of the likeness of players, who had not licensed that use. Because EA Sports and the NCAA used that information for profit without license from the players, the court decided they were entitled to compensation. If this company is profiting by selling profiles of people they have built without a license from those people, it still seems to be an unauthorized use of a person's likeness. I'm not sure new legislation is required, just for someone to test this idea in court with existing laws.
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.
It's the only way to be sure.
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?
Provided you're making (enough) money off of it. :D
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
The idea that EU privacy laws are never broken. Hellllooooooo!
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. ... Itâ(TM)s the only way to be sure" -- from the seminal text on destroying monsters ...
Precisely, let's make it a two way street and you will get the proper response from the authorities.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Back up your assertions.
mod you as uninformed.
arrests of anti-immigration protesters and speakers is a real thiing
You are naive if you think your companies comply with the law. It certainly would be a first.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
America is so effed-up, this might actually work *if* you were recognized as a corporation.
The "IDI" shell was earlier "Ideation Acquisition Corp" (2007, as IDI.U), which saw a large amount of money disappear in a 2009/2010, when it purchased SearchMedia holdings. It was renamed to "Tiger Media" shortly after (IDI.WS) "[being] notified that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Los Angeles Regional Office, was conducting a formal investigation". In 2014 "Tiger Media" bought the "The Best One", then in 2015 renamed itself to "IDI Inc" as part of the reverse merger, and disclosed that the existing "Tiger Media" business was worthless.
You have nothing. Thought so. Bye.
In Europe, unlike America, companies do get in trouble publicly and financially if they ignore laws.
At least that what his DOB on our database says...
That's why I say authorised use or personal information (via, say, you agreeing to an EULA) means you get a 50 cut.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How the fuck is there a difference?
Each is selling your personal info for money. How they collect it is minor at best.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Indeed. Even if it were true, they clearly don't care whether or not people believe them, and so I don't understand why they would bother saying anything about it in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Governments are one of the big customers of these list vendors, doh.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
It's FAR more intrusive. Best thing that could happen is this place gets instantly transported to deep space, employees and hardware inside, no spacesuits. It'd be a real public service.
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.
in 3, 2, 1...
not that anyone will notice as we are all "alarm fatigued" of hacked databases.
mfwright@batnet.com
Why is it necessary for the EU to even have privacy laws? Are privacy laws the only laws that are never broken? Has no one ever been charged with violating one of those laws? What about laws against selling drugs, does the EU have those also? Are those ever broken?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"Within the past few years, some former college football and basketball players sued the NCAA successfully."
They settled and there was no legal precedent established as there was no court or jury ruling. Feel free to try it in court, but you likely don't have the sort of case these players had, and you'll likely fuck up and lose.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I wonder how many profiles they've generated for me?
I have several email addresses that I keep segregated. One I use for junk email, my local sport teams' message boards, this site, etc. I have a second account that I use for buying things online (Steam, Amazon, Netflix, etc.) And a third address strictly for personal emails.
It's entirely feasible that all 3 have been picked up by this company, and treated as 3 completely unique people with the same name.
This signature is false.
How the fuck is there a difference?
Each is selling your personal info for money. How they collect it is minor at best.
there is actually.
Google doesn't sell their data set. It is part of their secret sauce, they decide what ads you see and the companies advertising just give google the demographic they want to target. So only google knows that you have a fetish for short Asian women wearing hulk hands, so marvel pays google to show adds for avengers toys to people likely to buy them and never know about you or your weird interests. As opposed to this company that simply sells of that info to anybody willing to ask for it.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
That's what I propose. Terms of the settlement: Complete and total destruction of the entire database and all backups, followed by public execution by guillotine of the management staff of the company.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The only people who would win in this scenario is lawyers. Our entire system is built by lawyers, for lawyers. In general, the answer is not "more laws".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Instead of "time for a law change" can we admit that the current setup is flawed and a reboot would be better than patching it? The sooner we can get the discussion going the better, because what we have now is past the expiration date.
I think Snowden did this already.
Nah, Google probably has more information on me (albeit misinformation) than these clowns do. Wonder why they won't give a demo? It's because they're full of shit.
Your line is vague at best.
Other people still know what I'm like. And get paid for it.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Do people wake up one day and set out to start the creepiest company they possibly can? Seriously, I haven't started a porn site because of the ick factor but now I think I might because this gives me someone that will sill make me feel good about myself.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
or Trump's tax records?
if not, they're not worth beans.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
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...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
As long as it's usually "the other guy" who's a victim of leaks, not enough will care to bring about change.
But one of these days, enough people will be publicly humiliated that politicians will be forced to take action (and probably ham-handed action, based on their past).
Table-ized A.I.
Is this something that I can query to see what my current address is for $5 or so or do they only deal with multi million dollar deals?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Your line is vague at best.
Other people still know what I'm like. And get paid for it.
no not really.
google is passing on ads to people the fit the desired critera of the agency placing the ad
this company selling your info giving this info to those companies.
your data never leaves google to the advertiser.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
U jelly american? Definitely yes!
Looks like I'll have to wait for Anonymous to bring this service to its knees.
If they are making money by collecting this information and refuse to allow people to opt-out of having information collected about them, they should also be required to pay you for the information you involuntarily give to them. After all, you cannot opt-out and since this is your information, you should be compensated when someone collects this information for marketing purposes.
LOL at never.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I think that there is a certain irony in the fact that it was reported that a man was hauled into court in DACHAU for his speech on Facebook.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???