What Is a Data Broker?


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


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • BrewDog exposed data for over 200,000 shareholders and customers

    October 8, 2021

    BrewDog, the Scottish brewery and pub chain famous for its crowd-ownership model and the tasty IPAs, has irreversibly exposed the details of 200,000 of its shareholders and customers. The exposure lasted for over 18 months and the point of the leak was the firm’s mobile app, which gives the ‘Equity Punks’ community access to information, discounts ...

  • European Parliament passes non-binding resolution to ban facial recognition

    October 7, 2021

    The European Parliament has voted in favour to a resolution banning law enforcement from using facial recognition systems. In explaining the resolution, the European Parliament said the use of AI by law enforcement currently poses various risks spanning opaque decision-making, discrimination, privacy intrusion, challenges to the protection of personal data, human dignity, and the freedom of ...

  • Twitch source code, business data, gamer payouts leaked in massive hack

    October 6, 2021

    An unknown hacker has leaked the entirety of Twitch’s source code among a 128 GB trove of data released this week. The hack, first reported by Video Games Chronicle and confirmed by multiple sources, includes: The entirety of twitch.tv, with commit history going back to its early beginnings Mobile, desktop and console Twitch clients Creator payout reports from 2019 Proprietary ...

  • The Telegraph exposes 10 TB database with subscriber info

    October 5, 2021

    ‘The Telegraph’, one of the UK’s largest newspapers and online media outlets, has leaked 10 TB of data after failing to properly secure one of its databases. The exposed information includes internal logs, full subscriber names, email addresses, device info, URL requests, IP addresses, authentication tokens, and unique reader identifiers. Bob Diachenko, the researcher who discovered the ...

  • 3.1M Neiman Marcus Customer Card Details Breached

    October 1, 2021

    Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group is known worldwide as the go-to luxury retailer for the well-heeled. But their reputation for impeccable quality just took a big hit with revelations that the company was breached by an attacker back in May 2020. It took 17 months for the retailer to notice. Just this week, Neiman Marcus acknowledged the compromise, ...

  • Database containing personal info on 106m people who traveled to Thailand found open to the internet – report

    September 21, 2021

    A database containing personal information on 106 million international travelers to Thailand was exposed to the public internet this year, a Brit biz claimed this week. Bob Diachenko, head of cybersecurity research at product-comparison website Comparitech, said the Elasticsearch data store contained visitors’ full names, passport numbers, arrival dates, visa types, residency status, and more. It ...