this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Privacy

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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."

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[–] varsock@programming.dev 33 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

[–] ACardboardRaven@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Personally, I'm just waiting for a massive data broker leak to happen that involves politicians and other useless wanks like that. That'll really jump their bones.

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