4 ms·

What Are 'Data Brokers,' and Why Are They Scooping Up Information About You?

77 points by dsr12 9y ago

api 9y ago
Stuff infosec people have known about for many years continues to break through into the public as if it's something new.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Even worse: stuff people involved in IT had been screaming about for years, but always got dismissed as paranoid nerds.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    I am often reminded of a friend's quip: "Stallman may be crazy, but he is not wrong." Emblematic of the overall dynamic between IT insiders and the general public.
- Dirlewanger 9y ago
  Yeah, I find this absolutely hilarious and overwhelmingly disheartening that it took a data firm connected to Trump for the mainstream media outlets to give a shit. No one cared that Obama had the same strategies in 2012, or Hillary did what Trump did (to a much more impressive degree with CTR and friends) in 2016.
  - tunap 9y ago
    From 2004. 3rd part is of particular relevance. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/
- dboreham 9y ago
  This has been going on offline since long before the modern Internet. I first heard about it in 1990.
rb808 9y ago
I think its always worth clicking on random ads to feed random interests to these guys. Yup I'm really interested in Peruvian pottery and Polka music. If its on an interesting site that you want to give revenue, even better. Would be nice to have a bot do it in the background. EDIT: mesothelioma is a great search. Highest pay per click by ambulance chasing lawyers.
- 908087 9y ago
  This is what you're looking for: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
  - rb808 9y ago
    > Built atop uBlock Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on ad networks' databases. Nice. Pity its banned on Chrome.
    - Espressosaurus 9y ago
      Not surprising, considering Google's entire existence depends on ads.
    - 908087 9y ago
      I agree to an extent, but using Chrome to begin with kind of seems like it would be antithetical to the use of AdNauseam, or at least somewhat self-defeating given the support you'd be giving to Google.
  - alecco 9y ago
    I think it's an amazing tool. But please add a disclaimer this is an easy way to get your Google account blocked if you are logged in in the same computer.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  haven't seen (m)any ads since noscript.
owly 9y ago
https://www.abine.com/deleteme/ https://www.abine.com/deleteme/ Anyone have direct experience with Abine’s deleteme service?
- Rjevski 9y ago
  But the issue is that they only delete stuff that's public - the issue with data brokers is that it happens underground - you can't just search your name and get all the data brokers that have your info. So while this might be a good service for people who had their personal information disclosed publicly (doxxing, etc), it will do little against data brokers.
drewmol 9y ago
Lol, I've been emailing back and forth with LogMeIn, trying to understand the privacy policy regarding Lastpass. This is my fourth reply, starting to get a bit of details, reps statements are in italics: While we may have some level of customization in our advertising to each user (if the product they are using has in-product advertising) I'm going to assume "may" can be understood as "do" and the section before and then inside parenthesis can be taken as: if the web page is serving ads, "we use http ad-removal & ad-injection to replace those ads with our own" , however the "our" part is still unclear... Do you serve those ads solely in house? Do you only have ad servers injecting pages for "your own" products? Is it possibly you use 3rd party ad-servers/ providers? Do you preform requested targeting on behalf of someone else using this marketing profile data? And if so, do you get compensated somehow other than "for profit purposes"? they may opt-out of external marketing, and as stated, we are not selling their marketing profile data to a third party for profit purposes.
soared 9y ago
Name a keyword or audience and I'll post the number of unique devices in the audience, the cost, and broker who provides it.
- thewarrior 9y ago
  Hacker News Readers :P
  - soared 9y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/aKhr8uW.png https://i.imgur.com/aKhr8uW.png
    - siruncledrew 9y ago
      Where do you find that? Is there proof it's legitimate?
      - soared 9y ago
        It's from the trade desk's data management platform (ttd dmp). You can probably find other screenshots online. It's where advertisers find audiences, I think the minimum for ttd is $10k/mo spend to use the platform.

77 points by dsr12 9y ago

api 9y ago

Stuff infosec people have known about for many years continues to break through into the public as if it's something new.

pmlnr 9y ago
Even worse: stuff people involved in IT had been screaming about for years, but always got dismissed as paranoid nerds.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  I am often reminded of a friend's quip: "Stallman may be crazy, but he is not wrong." Emblematic of the overall dynamic between IT insiders and the general public.
Dirlewanger 9y ago
Yeah, I find this absolutely hilarious and overwhelmingly disheartening that it took a data firm connected to Trump for the mainstream media outlets to give a shit. No one cared that Obama had the same strategies in 2012, or Hillary did what Trump did (to a much more impressive degree with CTR and friends) in 2016.
- tunap 9y ago
  From 2004. 3rd part is of particular relevance. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/
dboreham 9y ago
This has been going on offline since long before the modern Internet. I first heard about it in 1990.

rb808 9y ago

I think its always worth clicking on random ads to feed random interests to these guys. Yup I'm really interested in Peruvian pottery and Polka music. If its on an interesting site that you want to give revenue, even better. Would be nice to have a bot do it in the background. EDIT: mesothelioma is a great search. Highest pay per click by ambulance chasing lawyers.

908087 9y ago
This is what you're looking for: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
- rb808 9y ago
  > Built atop uBlock Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on ad networks' databases. Nice. Pity its banned on Chrome.
  - Espressosaurus 9y ago
    Not surprising, considering Google's entire existence depends on ads.
  - 908087 9y ago
    I agree to an extent, but using Chrome to begin with kind of seems like it would be antithetical to the use of AdNauseam, or at least somewhat self-defeating given the support you'd be giving to Google.
- alecco 9y ago
  I think it's an amazing tool. But please add a disclaimer this is an easy way to get your Google account blocked if you are logged in in the same computer.
singularity2001 9y ago
haven't seen (m)any ads since noscript.

owly 9y ago

https://www.abine.com/deleteme/ https://www.abine.com/deleteme/ Anyone have direct experience with Abine’s deleteme service?

Rjevski 9y ago
But the issue is that they only delete stuff that's public - the issue with data brokers is that it happens underground - you can't just search your name and get all the data brokers that have your info. So while this might be a good service for people who had their personal information disclosed publicly (doxxing, etc), it will do little against data brokers.

drewmol 9y ago

Lol, I've been emailing back and forth with LogMeIn, trying to understand the privacy policy regarding Lastpass. This is my fourth reply, starting to get a bit of details, reps statements are in italics: While we may have some level of customization in our advertising to each user (if the product they are using has in-product advertising) I'm going to assume "may" can be understood as "do" and the section before and then inside parenthesis can be taken as: if the web page is serving ads, "we use http ad-removal & ad-injection to replace those ads with our own" , however the "our" part is still unclear... Do you serve those ads solely in house? Do you only have ad servers injecting pages for "your own" products? Is it possibly you use 3rd party ad-servers/ providers? Do you preform requested targeting on behalf of someone else using this marketing profile data? And if so, do you get compensated somehow other than "for profit purposes"? they may opt-out of external marketing, and as stated, we are not selling their marketing profile data to a third party for profit purposes.

soared 9y ago

Name a keyword or audience and I'll post the number of unique devices in the audience, the cost, and broker who provides it.

thewarrior 9y ago
Hacker News Readers :P
- soared 9y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/aKhr8uW.png https://i.imgur.com/aKhr8uW.png
  - siruncledrew 9y ago
    Where do you find that? Is there proof it's legitimate?
    - soared 9y ago
      It's from the trade desk's data management platform (ttd dmp). You can probably find other screenshots online. It's where advertisers find audiences, I think the minimum for ttd is $10k/mo spend to use the platform.