TIP 1/10. What are data brokers?

Companies and marketing firms have been gathering information about customers and potential customers for years, collecting their names and addresses, tracking credit card purchases, and asking them to fill out questionnaires, so they can offer discounts and send catalogues.

 

What most people don't know, or are just beginning to realize, is that a much greater and more immediate threat to their privacy is coming from thousands of companies you've probably never heard of.

 

They're called data brokers, and they are collecting, analyzing and packaging some of our most sensitive personal information and selling it as a commodity...to each other, to advertisers, marketing firms and even the government, often without our direct knowledge. (Steve Kroft (2014) The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information).