What Marketers Think They Know About You and What They Really Do 277
mattydread23 writes "Data broker Acxiom did something a little unusual this week. It launched a service that lets you see the data they've collected on you. CITEworld writer Ron Miller checked it out, and found it to be mostly laughably inaccurate. Among the things they got wrong included his religion, his interests, and the number of kids he has. But worst? It pegged him as a Windows user."
Good job (Score:5, Informative)
Give me the link! (Score:5, Informative)
I had to click through to a third page before getting a link to the relevant website.
The Acxiom site is found at https://aboutthedata.com/ [aboutthedata.com].
Privacy policy (FWIW) is here: https://aboutthedata.com/privacy/ [aboutthedata.com]
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
And in order to see the data they have about me, I have to give them my name, home address, last four digits of my SSN? Seriously? They're going to make a fortune off of this!
Why don't you want collection agencies being able to correlate your social with contact information so they can harass you? Especially collection agencies who buy old debt packages from people who don't keep very good billing records, like most doctors and dentists, and try to collect bills you've already paid because some idiot left a copy of one in the wrong old cardboard box somewhere?
It's pretty clear that you don't understand the important fact that, when they screw up, you're obligated to pay them again, and you are just a deadbeat.
Or maybe they intend to monetize stupidity, which has been a pretty standard trick for as long as there has been commerce...
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
And in order to see the data they have about me, I have to give them my name, home address, last four digits of my SSN? Seriously?
That's about what the credit reporting agencies want from you in order to get your "free" yearly copy of your credit report. I always thought it was particularly convenient for them too.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
And in order to see the data they have about me, I have to give them my name, home address, last four digits of my SSN? Seriously?
If you think that the data brokers like Lexis Nexis, Choicepoint and these guys don't already have all of that information and more, you're sadly misinformed. Would it shock to know that all of that information is readily available to just about any business owner or attorney for $50 or less and nothing more than a promise (by them to the data broker) that you said that you wanted to do business with them or are a client of theirs?
Click here to see what they have on you (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says:
"Data broker Acxiom did something a little unusual this week. It launched a service that lets you see the data they've collected on you"
Unfortunately that link got you to a page on www.citeworld.com which carries a link to www.nytimes.com
After a wild goose chase I finally got that link ---
https://aboutthedata.com/ [aboutthedata.com]
Re:I'm not falling for that! (Score:4, Informative)
It's not as if it's a trick -- they're very explicit that the purpose of the site is for you to tell them all about yourself so they can sell that info. https://aboutthedata.com/portal [aboutthedata.com] begins "Who are you? If you want to get the best advertising delivered to you, based on your actual interests, start here. Tell us who you are so we can show you the information used to fuel many of the marketing offers you receive from advertisers using Acxiom's digital marketing data."
As for who enjoys ads so much that they want to take time out of their day to do unpaid work for advertising companies... well I can't imagine.
Only a glimpse (Score:5, Informative)
Although the site shows visitors a few facts that some might consider sensitive, like race and ethnicity, it initially omits, at least in the version I saw, intimate references — like “gambling,” “senior needs,” “smoker in the household” and “adult with wealthy parent” — that Acxiom markets to corporate clients but that might discomfit consumers if they knew they were for sale.
So Axciom's transparency portal isn't so transparent at all...
Re:I'm not falling for that! (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget every insurance company those employers have ever provided benefits for, any bank you've ever had an account with, and if you've gone to college, they've got it, too -- and, if so, trust me, it's out there now.
Re:I'm not falling for that! (Score:4, Informative)
It apparently thinks it knows a couple things about me. It thinks it knows how much i make (almost correct.) It thinks i own a couple kinds of credit cards that i don't think i own. It thinks i've made exactly one purchase using those credit cards in the last two years. It thinks that purchase was an online purchase for $80. Notably it can't figure out my political party even though you can easily find my donation records to a prominent political party if you do a search using my real name.
But impressively it does seem to have realized i used a false birthday! It reports my birthday as actually being on an entirely different and equally wrong day.
So either this system is brain dead, or there's someone else out there with the same name as me, who's lived in the same place as i did a couple years ago, has the same last 4 SSN digits, but was born several weeks after i was and makes 99% of their purchases with cash.