Your personal information v/s Data brokers

Data is proved to be the most powerful tool of the digital world, and data farming has evolved as a new avenue for data brokers. Marketing companies primarily use data harvesting as a multibillion-dollar industry in this present age of the internet.

What data companies collect?

Data selling companies collect pieces of information about the various interactions of the consumers. Companies go through tracking consumers to bring more profits. For example, a company that knows you are a pet owner based on your surfing activities on the internet will send you coupons for promoting its products for pets.

Legitimate data ensures a business to have more information about a person, and thus they send ads targeting people who may be potential customers for their products or services.  

How data selling companies make money?

Data brokers work in numerous ways. Generally, they sell the information in the format required by a business. The data can be in the shape of a list with contact information with specific categories. For example, the list can be segregated by interests like ‘new parents’. In turn, the data is sold to the required business to make money.

Data selling companies

All the data providers don’t provide the same service. Below are some of the companies who know more about us and b2b demand generation than what we know about them.

● Acxiom – The company started its career by collecting data for use in local politics. Soon Acxiom became a world leader in direct marketing when it joined hands with banks and retailers. Later the company allowed users for partial opt-out when they criticized that they found it challenging to prevent Acxiom from using their data.

● Nielsen – The company started its specialization by gathering data on TV, music, radio and magazine audiences. Later Nielsen entered a retail database known as Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG). The company also measures consumer behaviour through its National Consumer Program to allow businesses to make marketing strategies accordingly.

● Experian started its services with financial data and later expanded to all industries’ significant sectors. Experian was a pioneer to give its services directly to consumers for the data gathered from third parties. The company took advantage of the growing awareness of data collection by offering its services to direct marketing specialists.

● Equifax – The oldest data provider company started its services by providing insurance companies data to assess their clients’ risk to set their premiums. Later the company was criticized for selling data based on personal behaviours.  

● Corelogic – Providing analytical data for the mortgage and real estate industries, Corelogic is the youngest of all. The company gathers data from open source, from other brokers and with its own customer’s base.

Conclusion

Most data brokers don’t allow you to see what information they have about individuals. Many companies also allow you to opt out to help maintain your privacy. Also, many companies don’t sell their data, but they often allow accessing it. PayPal is one of the companies that share customers name, address, phone number, etc., to be used for marketing.