So we’ve talked about how necessary it is for companies to maintain data transparency, and we’ve discussed the insane amount of information they collect and circulate, but what we haven’t gone into yet is the role of the data-mining companies themselves. Today we’re going to fix that, while also introducing some additional big data terminology to your lexicon.
As this 2012 CNN article explains, there are companies out there, fondly termed data brokers, that “collect things like contact information, demographics and your preferences on things” and then “aggregate that information to try to discern a picture of what people 
want.” CBS News defines them as “collecting, analyzing and packaging some of our most sensitive personal information and selling it as a commodity…to each other, to advertisers, even the government, often without our direct knowledge.” FYI, I’m not talking about Facebook anymore. No, this is that mysterious “third party” that you’ll find in nearly every TOS you’ve ever agreed to, it’s the all-knowing “them” I’ve referred to in every post. The CNN article introduces one such company called Acxiom. In an interview with the reporter, Acxiom CEO Scott Howe proudly offered the above quotes I used as a definition for data brokers while going on to explain the necessity of his company’s services. Thankfully, the article’s author goes on to report the many potential issues with these data brokers, particularly these following points:
1. “the average consumer has no idea that their intimate personal details are up for sale on these sites”
My bets are on the fact that you never knew Acxiom existed.But Acxiom knows your name, number, where you live, your gender and all the things you like and don’t like. You’ve never visited their site, and yet they’ve got a nice fat folder with your name on it, for sale to their various clients.
2. “data mining could open the door to hacking, identity theft and stalking.”
What companies like Acxiom do, and what all data brokers do, is create these enormous dossiers containing a lot of really important information on you. It doesn’t matter if you have “nothing to hide,” any law abiding citizen can have their entire lives hacked awa
y by anyone savvy enough with a computer to get into whichever data mining company they so choose. A security researcher from Dell SecureWorks explains that, “just basic information…can lead predators to potential victims… That’s a common scenario, actually.”
The article goes on to state several more critiques and I definitely recommend reading it if you’ve got some time.
The funny thing about these data brokers is that they seem to float in this mysterious grey area, a giant legislative question mark surrounds what they do and how they do it. There’s no federal regulation encouraging them to encrypt the information they have on you or otherwise keep it protected. CBS News explains that data brokers have always been around, but have grown immensely in vo
lume as of late. What used to be somewhat harmless collections from surveys and phone calls has become malicious and dangerous. The author explains, “No one even knows how many companies there are trafficking in our data. But it’s certainly in the thousands, and would include research firms, all sorts of Internet companies, advertisers, retailers and trade associations. The largest data broker is Acxiom, a marketing giant that brags it has, on average, 1,500 pieces of information on more than 200 million Americans.” Can you even imagine what 1500 pieces of information on you would look like?
Data Brokers are viewed with plenty of criticism, which is something we are extremely happy to see. It’s great that big news names like CNN and CBS News are educating their readers about Big Data and explaining the numerous consequences that follow in data mining companies’ wake. Hopefully this post has helped clarify all those “them”s I’ve been referencing, while making the chain of information a little clearer.
There are some tools out there you can use to reduce the amount of information these companies have, such as Abine, a company that claims to quite literally “remove your information from data broker sites.” Of course this service comes at a cost, and cannot guarantee that everything will be found and removed. So remember, as always #thinkbeforeyouclick and be careful what you do online. Nothing is private, and you never know who’s watching.
A major issue that is becoming increasingly more prominent in the workforce is whether or not employers should be able to access your personal social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, to pass judgments about your life and your character. These judgments can play into whether or not you are hired in the company, or if you should maintain your job in the chance that your social media profiles display some sort of characteristic that a boss or employer does not agree with.
nglish. I never really had much of an interest in the tech industry beyond being a basic user and consumer of it, but upon reading several articles I found through reddit I gained a lot of information regarding what was actually happening around me when I used almost any website or application.
or website I actually read the Terms of Service instead of just clicking the “I agree” box. I thought that if I was informed and understood exactly what these companies were going to do, I would feel safer and I could choose not to spend my time on the websites that sought to sell and profit off of any and all data they could get their hands on. But I was wrong.
clear terms what is being collected and where it is being sent. Reading through the terms of service shouldn’t require a dictionary and it definitely shouldn’t create fuzzy grey areas that essentially allow companies to do whatever they want with your data, malicious or not, without facing potential consequences.
Crystal Clear 