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It’s also irrelevant if one can cross reference just a few pieces of data: phone did, address, location geo associated known associates, multiple locations (sch
by happytiger 3y ago
It’s also irrelevant if one can cross reference just a few pieces of data: phone did, address, location geo associated known associates, multiple locations (school, work, home), demographic info, one can de-anonymize data relatively painlessly. And that is a lot easier if I’m targeting a single person and know some of those data points to start.
And how much of this applies to the companies that aren’t buying the data but generating it themselves?
RTB is just one vector of many, and while it’s useful to expose how much data is constantly leaking, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
- chaps 3y agoWell, yes. Yes. The more we can understand this stuff, the better. Not many journalists are working on these issues, and it's nice to see it get more coverage by folk dedicated to it. I've personally had an exceptionally difficult time pitching this sort of story to outlets -- they want something big and juicy. But the reality of it all is boring, subtle and routine. Then made much worse by the army of lawyers who will argue to the bone about what "private" and "consent" means in the favor of privacy damning systems like what we see here.
- happytiger 3y agoHow big and juicy do we need to get? https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-insufferable-bros-who-run-corporate https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-insufferable-bros-who... You’d think someone like the ICIJ would be doing a panama-papers style expose, but I don’t know if there’s a trove of data to build on. It’s more of a business model than a conspiracy these days. As you say it’s boring and routine. Yea the legal community is complicit and often actually actively involved in this entire transformation. There are quite a few law firms “in the game” that are data brokers themselves.