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SALT LAKE CITY — Just how much do they know about us? What are they doing with our private information? Who are they telling? And is there anything we can do to control it?
We're talking about data brokers, companies that collect information about consumers and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. They've been around for decades, but most people don't know about data brokers.
Lois Beckett reports on the consumer data industry for Pro-Publica. She said data brokers get their information from many different sources, and that information is for sale.
"Some companies get the information from where you shop, taking records out of your purchases, tiny bits of information, and collecting them all in one place so that companies can buy lists of people of a certain age, certain area, who buy certain kinds of things," she explained.
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What certain kinds of things? Well, anything from buying a new car to a new couch to a set a golf clubs. Even romance novels don't escape the attention of data brokers.
Why do companies want to buy the lists? To sell you stuff!
"If you want to sell romance novels or if you have information that women who like romance novels might also like these other kind of products, buying a list like that can be very useful," Beckett said.
That's just the beginning. Data brokers also compile lists on people who're going through big life events such as buying a home, getting married, getting divorced, having a baby.
"Expectant parents might buy certain things, certain books, might sign off at one store for a list to be on for baby shopping," Beckett said.
So where do the data brokers get this sort of information on you? Largely through retailers and their store loyalty cards that may save you a few bucks. There are other sources, such as public voting records and in some states the Department of Motor Vehicles. Utah's DMV is not on that list.
Social media also provides a rich mine of data.
"What we don't realize that some of these big companies are going over the web and systematically collecting are Facebook profiles, Twitter profiles, and something we have on YouTube, a website we have, and connecting it to our names, addresses, our date of birth, all this other information about us," Beckett said.
The FTC is asking Congress for a privacy law which would give consumers access to their information held by a data broker. It also is asking data brokers to voluntarily create a one-step website where the public can opt out of data tracking.
Does the collection of all that information harm us?
Data brokers argue the worst that can happen is if there's a mistake, you'll get targeted with an ad or junk mail that's not something you really want to buy. But privacy advocates counter all that information can be used to predict a shopper's next move.
Beckett said you can find a good example of this at Target. The retail giant analyzed customer data and realized women who are in the first couple of months of their pregnancies were buying certain kinds of lotions and vitamins.
"Just from consumer purchases, from innocuous things like lotion, we're able to predict whether their customers were pregnant or not," she said.
That's information Target learned without a customer ever telling them.
