It would be interesting to pick few data brokers companies with richest profiles database and “buy” (I have no idea how this nasty business is working in reality) a profile of one selected person (maybe some well known online influencer) and compare them. I am not sure but I feel that if we pick 10 companies we could receive 10 different results and even these results can be far away from reality as online and real world are two different entities …
Or “buy” a profile of owners and managers of data brokers or big tech companies and send it to them with questions:
How do you feel when you know that all this information could be accessible for anybody who has money to buy it? How you would feel if I will buy personal profile of your relatives and provide it for free for wider community? Do you think that only selected persons (as you and other privileged groups) can be protected against this? My psychologist, doctor and other professionals which collect real information about my health, personality or other sensitive information can not provide it to anybody and in fact they are trying to help me…why do you think you can do that for your own profit? … And we can make plenty of other meaningful questions which will prove the fact that this is quite straight and quick way to hell…
I know those are disgusting thoughts, maybe even it is not legal (I am quite sure that data brokers companies with their army of expensive and brilliant lawyers are somehow protected against it), but it could be a quite eyes opening initiative for majority of people which are thinking that nothing bad is happening with privacy and surveillance in digital world …
This is a super idea, @Bozon! This should be done by someone in the know. If we commence with this we should do it as part of our Awareness Program, and define a campaign for it. Really like this.
(PS. I moved your post to a new topic from its original location here)
I tried to get lexisnexis consumer disclosure report thinking they would give me all the data they have on me.
I have seen more info on my business card! They sent me a thick packet of paper that had my addresses only going back ten years, three email accounts I use most (I have maybe 20), one phone number I haven’t used in many years, and the rest was disclaimer and boilerplate filler, some pages were almost blank.
It was lip service, that’s all you get for free.
I did the trial of beenverified, its like intellus or any of those spokeo, and looked myself up.
It had some wrong info but every state speeding ticket or small court I have ever been in. Nothing federal (no judgement non-violent cannabis possession).
The craziest thing about it I learned was the court access. My friend who was in the most trouble when we were kids, he had 89 court cases that beenverified found and it says whether or not he went to the pen and how long… Not info I would want out there if I was him trying to work.
The most shocking thing I saw was one from 2000 I was in high school, my step brother was charged and convicted for attempted sexual battery and kidnapping of a girl and assault of same girl. I always knew he was a jerk but he is pure evil, glad to know and he is never going to be near my niece alone.
Access to beenverified and all the data cost me $14.
Data brokers online companies mine addresses, phone no. and other personal informations and legally sells them to anyone. This is disturbing and dangerous. Some personal informations of known personalities bought from data brokers particularly their addresses and phone no.were distributed online. Resulting to death threats and harrasment. There was even a case where the stalker of a woman bought personal information about her from a third party broker and tracked her for many years and eventually killed the woman. These practices may expose people to harm. There must be some kind of regulation on this instead of individuals fighting for their own data privacy the government should rein in the data brokers.
Government are selling it though, look at fcc. They sell all location gps data to “location aggregators” that are middlemen not bound by same law as fcc, and they use it to sell leads to bounty hunters in real time.
The lady in charge of overseeing fcc tried to investigate last year, but fcc delayed answering questions or doing anything over a year, congress didnt make him, and fcc rules say investigation maximum time is one year.
Ah case closed justice served?
The usa government and telecom cartel should be viewed as the same entity.