A data broker (also known as an information product company) is an organization that makes money by collecting your personal information, analyzing it, and licensing it out to be used by other companies for things like marketing purposes.
Data providers gather data from many different sources to create a profile of who you are. This profile includes things like your interests, hobbies, demographics, and even the products you use. Generally, data broker companies only deal with customers to collect information. A few of the top data brokerage companies are Epsilon, Acxiom, and Experian, but there are many data brokerages worldwide that make a hefty profit from aggregating and distributing consumers’ personal data.
Read more…
Source: McAfee
Related:
- US lawmakers want to put NSO Group, 3 other spyware makers out of business with fresh severe sanctions
December 15, 2021
Eighteen US Democratic lawmakers have asked the Treasury Department and State Department to punish Israel-based spyware maker NSO Group and three other surveillance software firms for enabling human rights abuses. In a letter signed by US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), and 16 others, the legislators urge Secretary of ...
- Tor blocked in Russia
December 8, 2021
The Tor browser, which allows users to surf the internet anonymously and access prohibited webpages, has been blocked across much of Russia, according to recent reports from an internet-monitoring group. The Open Observatory of Network Interference, or OONI, reported last week that Tor’s system of proxy servers in Russia had partly stopped working at around 5:21pm ...
- Sensitive information of 30k Florida healthcare workers exposed in unprotected database
December 3, 2021
More than 30,000 US healthcare workers’ personal information was recently exposed due to a non-password protected database, according to security researcher Jeremiah Fowler and a team of ethical hackers with Website Planet. Fowler discovered a database run by Gale Healthcare Solutions with 170,239 exposed records that included names, emails, home addresses, photos and in some cases ...
- Planned Parenthood LA: Ransomware attack leaks health data of 400,000 patients
December 2, 2021
Planned Parenthood Los Angeles has sent out breach notification letters to about 400,000 patients after the organization suffered from a ransomware incident between October 9 and October 17. In a letter shared with the California Attorney General’s office and sent out on November 30, the organization said it identified suspicious activity in its computer network on ...
- UK: Facial recognition firm faces possible £17m privacy fine
November 29, 2021
An Australian firm which claims to have a database of more than 10 billion facial images is facing a potential £17m fine over its handling of personal data in the UK. The Information Commissioner’s Office said it had significant concerns about Clearview AI, whose facial recognition software is used by police forces. It has told the firm ...
- FBI Document Says the Feds Can Get Your WhatsApp Data – in Real Time
November 29, 2021
As Apple and WhatsApp have built themselves into multibillion-dollar behemoths, they’ve done it while preaching the importance of privacy, especially when it comes to secure messaging. But in a previously unreported FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone, the bureau claims that it’s particularly easy to harvest data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services, as long ...