6 ms·

There is no such public list. Most of these companies are privately held, their methods are trade secrets, and there is no real form of legal recourse. Your bes

There is no such public list. Most of these companies are privately held, their methods are trade secrets, and there is no real form of legal recourse. Your best bet would be to buy a book like this: https://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Internet-Eliminating-Personal-Information/dp/1500397814 https://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Internet-Eliminating-Personal-... and follow the recommendations, but even that is only likely to be half-effective. Much of the public information is mined from sources like credit headers, your court records, utility bills, property and tax assessment records, voter registration lists, motor vehicle registrations, etc. Unfortunately, the legal and technological landscape is such that 'hiding' from these kinds of services is effectively impossible.

mehrdadn 10y ago
> There is no such public list. Most of these companies are privately held, their methods are trade secrets, and there is no real form of legal recourse. How can there not be a public list of these data miners? When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? Is there a secret list in every courthouse or something? Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out? Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell?
- twblalock 10y ago
  > When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? Is there a secret list in every courthouse or something? The courts don't control information in that way.
  - mehrdadn 10y ago
    That's surprising. So what happens when there is a high profile case and the court fears for the jurors' lives? Or the case itself involves someone whose life will be in danger afterwards? If anybody can find out where these people live then they're toast. The courts have to suppress the information legally somehow, right? If not the old information, at least they need some protection against mining of new information after the subjects move or change their names, no? Are you literally saying they have no way to order all the first-level companies to stop sharing data on someone?
    - pc86 10y ago
      > So what happens when there is a high profile case and the court fears for the jurors' lives? Jurors' identities are not generally a secret.[0] There are exceptions, but those exceptions do not extend to wiping that person's data from things like pharmacy and gas station reward card databases. Honestly your entire premise shows a lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system works. > Are you literally saying they have no way to order all the first-level companies to stop sharing data on someone? Sue all of them individually, win each case, and have them ordered to stop collecting data on you. Something tell me this is tantamount to "don't use a computer or a credit card. Ever." [0] http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/public-access-to-juror-information-in-a-criminal-trial.html http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/public-access-...
      - mehrdadn 10y ago
        > Jurors' identities are not generally a secret.[0] There are exceptions I was talking about the exceptions. If there are exceptions, a way to handle them must exist, is all I was saying. > but those exceptions do not extend to wiping that person's data from things like pharmacy and gas station reward card databases. I was asking about the companies who obtain this original information, not pharmacies' or gas stations' databases themselves. I feel like you're not understanding my question? > Honestly your entire premise shows a lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system works. Quiet likely (I'm not claiming otherwise; I'm not a lawyer and I haven't exactly been involved in legal proceedings) and I didn't claim otherwise. Also hardly undermines my point. Like I've said in some 3-4 other comments, someone who e.g. starts a new company like InstantCheckmate has to know whom to buy the data from -- like I said, there's no way all of these companies contact all grocery stores and all doctors. That's insane. Someone's gotta be doing the heavy lifting and making money off it. I'm asking who this is. I asked this in the original post. If the court example is wrong or otherwise bothers you just ignore it. If someone not already involved in the business knows to contact these companies to obtain information, someone must know who they are, is all I'm saying. Otherwise they would not exist.
        ceejayoz 10y ago
- dsp1234 10y ago
  a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? I think you have a misunderstanding of what a US court can do. A court can only tell a specific party to take some action, and generally only if that party is somehow related to the legal action (such as being a defendant). Generally, there is no judgement that a court can make that can effect unnamed parties (unless they are John Does, which later have to be named). Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell? The techniques used are generally trade secrets, and amount to competitive advantage. There is little incentive for a company to reveal this information (or for an employee to do so, and thus open themselves up to legal liability).
  - mehrdadn 10y ago
    What about this though: >> Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out?
    - cosmie 10y ago
      > If that's a secret then how would they find out? You don't. I've worked in data acquisition in the past, both buying data and selling it. Sometimes as the original source of truth and sometimes as a middleman that does data cleaning, standardization, appending (from other sources), then selling the derived product downstream. Companies in that space guard their upstream sources quite heavily, because they don't want to be cut out of the process. You won't find a centralized list of independent data feeds and providers specifically because of that. In one scenario, we were dealing with a substantial rate increase from one supplier. We spent time attempting to source an alternate supplier of that particular type of data, and could only find sources that were several months more stale than we were currently getting (i.e. these people were getting the feed several hops after we were). In the end we paid the rate increase because we couldn't find an alternate source that was as close to the original data provider as our current source. And without knowing who the original data provider was, we couldn't go around our supplier. The lack of a centralized directory isn't just done to make things opaque for end users, it's done to make things opaque for business competitors as well. It's an industry that's very, very reliant on networking and introductions. Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
- pc86 10y ago
  You grossly underestimate the scope and power of the United States judicial system, which does not ever have a need or desire to "control someone's information."
- justin66 10y ago
  > When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? The companies which furnish personal data aggregated from courts are legally required to stay on top of out-of-date records and purge records which are inaccurate. (it would be completely untenable for things to work the other way, with every court and agency which made records available being required to reach out to every recipient of the data. For one thing, in some cases the data can legally be resold.) They can be held civilly liable for distributing false information and might also be in breach of their agreements with the agencies which give them access to the data. The urgency with which this is required under the law depends on the use to which the data is being put. It's really important to keep data used in pre-employment reports up to date. Marketing data can generally be full of garbage. This is all generally governed in the United States under the FCRA. It's not an area of the law that you're going to get comfortably familiar with in just an afternoon of reading.
sbov 10y ago
I have a friend who is super paranoid about privacy stuff. He was even able to get his utility bills to use a PO box rather than his home address, which he said was extremely difficult.
- protomyth 10y ago
  Depends where you are in the country. Many rural places don't have home delivery and only have P.O. Boxes. Home delivery from Amazon, etc. requires a bit of work.

mehrdadn 10y ago

> There is no such public list. Most of these companies are privately held, their methods are trade secrets, and there is no real form of legal recourse. How can there not be a public list of these data miners? When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? Is there a secret list in every courthouse or something? Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out? Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell?

twblalock 10y ago
> When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? Is there a secret list in every courthouse or something? The courts don't control information in that way.
- mehrdadn 10y ago
  That's surprising. So what happens when there is a high profile case and the court fears for the jurors' lives? Or the case itself involves someone whose life will be in danger afterwards? If anybody can find out where these people live then they're toast. The courts have to suppress the information legally somehow, right? If not the old information, at least they need some protection against mining of new information after the subjects move or change their names, no? Are you literally saying they have no way to order all the first-level companies to stop sharing data on someone?
  - pc86 10y ago
    > So what happens when there is a high profile case and the court fears for the jurors' lives? Jurors' identities are not generally a secret.[0] There are exceptions, but those exceptions do not extend to wiping that person's data from things like pharmacy and gas station reward card databases. Honestly your entire premise shows a lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system works. > Are you literally saying they have no way to order all the first-level companies to stop sharing data on someone? Sue all of them individually, win each case, and have them ordered to stop collecting data on you. Something tell me this is tantamount to "don't use a computer or a credit card. Ever." [0] http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/public-access-to-juror-information-in-a-criminal-trial.html http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/public-access-...
    - mehrdadn 10y ago
      > Jurors' identities are not generally a secret.[0] There are exceptions I was talking about the exceptions. If there are exceptions, a way to handle them must exist, is all I was saying. > but those exceptions do not extend to wiping that person's data from things like pharmacy and gas station reward card databases. I was asking about the companies who obtain this original information, not pharmacies' or gas stations' databases themselves. I feel like you're not understanding my question? > Honestly your entire premise shows a lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system works. Quiet likely (I'm not claiming otherwise; I'm not a lawyer and I haven't exactly been involved in legal proceedings) and I didn't claim otherwise. Also hardly undermines my point. Like I've said in some 3-4 other comments, someone who e.g. starts a new company like InstantCheckmate has to know whom to buy the data from -- like I said, there's no way all of these companies contact all grocery stores and all doctors. That's insane. Someone's gotta be doing the heavy lifting and making money off it. I'm asking who this is. I asked this in the original post. If the court example is wrong or otherwise bothers you just ignore it. If someone not already involved in the business knows to contact these companies to obtain information, someone must know who they are, is all I'm saying. Otherwise they would not exist.
      - ceejayoz 10y ago
dsp1234 10y ago
a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? I think you have a misunderstanding of what a US court can do. A court can only tell a specific party to take some action, and generally only if that party is somehow related to the legal action (such as being a defendant). Generally, there is no judgement that a court can make that can effect unnamed parties (unless they are John Does, which later have to be named). Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell? The techniques used are generally trade secrets, and amount to competitive advantage. There is little incentive for a company to reveal this information (or for an employee to do so, and thus open themselves up to legal liability).
- mehrdadn 10y ago
  What about this though: >> Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out?
  - cosmie 10y ago
    > If that's a secret then how would they find out? You don't. I've worked in data acquisition in the past, both buying data and selling it. Sometimes as the original source of truth and sometimes as a middleman that does data cleaning, standardization, appending (from other sources), then selling the derived product downstream. Companies in that space guard their upstream sources quite heavily, because they don't want to be cut out of the process. You won't find a centralized list of independent data feeds and providers specifically because of that. In one scenario, we were dealing with a substantial rate increase from one supplier. We spent time attempting to source an alternate supplier of that particular type of data, and could only find sources that were several months more stale than we were currently getting (i.e. these people were getting the feed several hops after we were). In the end we paid the rate increase because we couldn't find an alternate source that was as close to the original data provider as our current source. And without knowing who the original data provider was, we couldn't go around our supplier. The lack of a centralized directory isn't just done to make things opaque for end users, it's done to make things opaque for business competitors as well. It's an industry that's very, very reliant on networking and introductions. Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
pc86 10y ago
You grossly underestimate the scope and power of the United States judicial system, which does not ever have a need or desire to "control someone's information."
justin66 10y ago
> When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? The companies which furnish personal data aggregated from courts are legally required to stay on top of out-of-date records and purge records which are inaccurate. (it would be completely untenable for things to work the other way, with every court and agency which made records available being required to reach out to every recipient of the data. For one thing, in some cases the data can legally be resold.) They can be held civilly liable for distributing false information and might also be in breach of their agreements with the agencies which give them access to the data. The urgency with which this is required under the law depends on the use to which the data is being put. It's really important to keep data used in pre-employment reports up to date. Marketing data can generally be full of garbage. This is all generally governed in the United States under the FCRA. It's not an area of the law that you're going to get comfortably familiar with in just an afternoon of reading.

sbov 10y ago

I have a friend who is super paranoid about privacy stuff. He was even able to get his utility bills to use a PO box rather than his home address, which he said was extremely difficult.

protomyth 10y ago
Depends where you are in the country. Many rural places don't have home delivery and only have P.O. Boxes. Home delivery from Amazon, etc. requires a bit of work.