this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
119 points (98.4% liked)

Privacy

32120 readers
397 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Below is a disturbing amount of information data brokers have ammased from buying your data from trackers in ads and apps.

"a staggering amount of sensitive and identifying information about consumers," alleging that Kochava's database includes products seemingly capable of identifying nearly every person in the United States.

... can access this data to trace individuals' movements—including to sensitive locations like hospitals, temporary shelters, and places of worship, with a promised accuracy within "a few meters"—over a day, a week, a month, or a year. Kochava's products can also provide a "360-degree perspective" on individuals, unveiling personally identifying information like their names, home addresses, phone numbers, as well as sensitive information like their race, gender, ethnicity, annual income, political affiliations, or religion, the FTC alleged.

... target customers by categories that are "often based on specific sensitive and personal characteristics or attributes identified from its massive collection of data about individual consumers." These "audience segments" allegedly allow advertisers to conduct invasive targeting by grouping people not just by common data points like age or gender, but by "places they have visited," political associations, or even their current circumstances, like whether they're expectant parents. Or advertisers can allegedly combine data points to target highly specific audience segments like "all the pregnant Muslim women in Kochava’s database," the FTC alleged, or "parents with different ages of children."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] varsock 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I feel so powerless, so hopeless.

Bills aren't being passed by lawmakers because like many of us who care about privacy, they have not heard about the abilities of data brokers and have no visibility into how rampant and disgusting and invasive their behavior is.

Friends and family I talk to don't care. "Oh well, what are they going to do, find me personally?"

I feel if people were able to look themselves up in these databases, they would fear it as well

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

@varsock Holy crap. I’m not the only one. Thank you! Outside of my coworkers no one seems to understand and say variations of the same think you mentioned. Scary.

[–] varsock 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

thanks.

The last gleam of hope I had was last year when John Oliver did an episode on data brokers. He in turn went and purchased data that would match congressmen in the D.C. area, along with their "interests." He jokingly threatened to release it (bc congressmen tend to act on an issue if it affects them personally). I thought that would be huge, everybody would see how rampant and invasive data collection would be. I was thrilled for a breakthrough.

but so far no movement, hasn't been released. I wonder if people wrote to John Oliver and his team if we will get an answer haha

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

More likely that the powers that be pressured HBO for him to back down.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)