Brokers use ‘billions’ of data points to profile Americans

[James C]

Brokers use ‘billions’ of data points to profile Americans

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

Are you a financially strapped working mother who smokes? A Jewish retiree with a fondness for Caribbean cruises? Or a Spanish-speaking professional with allergies, a dog and a collection of Elvis memorabilia?

All this information and much, much more is being quietly collected, analyzed and distributed by the nation’s burgeoning data-broker industry, which uses billions of individual data points to produce detailed portraits of virtually every American consumer, the Federal Trade Commission reported Tuesday.

“The extent of consumer profiling today means that data brokers often know as much — or even more — about us than our family and friends,

[slavvo67]

As an American that cherishes my privacy, this is concerning. As a lover of technology, it's no surprise that technology has moved in a direction to profile people. I'm pretty sure Google has been doing it from day one. No offense to Google.

I guess the only way around such things is going to the store directly and paying with cash (maybe wiping off your fingerprints first...LOL).

[gcmartin]

One item I wish to share: Information has been a commodity for as long as I have been alive. It is NOT going to stop! No one, and I do mean NO ONE, has any interest in stopping this. In some governments, this is a prime source of revenue in its industry.

For example, how many are aware that you can purchase profile information from you state's Motor Vehicle Department? ... and it goes on and on and on and ...

In 1977, I was at an Industry session where my company announces that their model was changing from product emphasis to a strict information focus. They went so far as to say that America would become the leader in information management product while product manufacturing would decline. I did not believe them, then. But, in 7 short years, I watch the impact of that begin to come to terms.

Our world, is now clearly focused on information...especially in corporate systems. This very idea, "Big Data" is, now, never going to go away ... no matter what.

How that information is used is going to surface sooner/later in local or world's behavior.