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An advertising industry worker's take on adblockers
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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I work for a major data aggregator of public records, which uses a lot of the same techniques the these ad places use to profile people.
You would be astounded by the sheer amount of information we have on individual people from addresses, hard pii such as criminal and finance records and your ssn if in the USA, who your neighbors and family are, your assets such as housing/vehicles etc, and even your individual devices like your phone.
I was done dirty by one of these ‘services’. I was applying for housing and the report came back and had mixed my background up with a multiple felon who had inly a vaguely similar name. It turns out I was denied the chance to rent and I had very little recourse to correct the record. Laws around this stuff really stink in the USA.
In summary, CoreLogic/SafeRent can get stuffed.
Not to mention if you use a bit of game and network theory you can extrapolate political leanings, health conditions, sexual preferences, affairs, etc. All of the most personal and intimate details of a person's life are one data analysis away if you have a few things. Purchase histories from your rewards cards, browsing history, viewing history, most watched tv shows, if you mute ads or not; everything is tracked and aggregated and available for purchase. Even supposedly anonymized data can be de-anonymized with relative ease.
I remember a story from years ago where a woman started getting pre-natal coupons from Target. She didn't even know she was pregnant. She took a test a couple of days later and found out. They had determined she was likely pregnant due to the changes in her food-purchasing habits that she had been doing instinctually.
I read about that Target thing as well. I seem to remember someone who worked for them stated that their shopper data analysis algorithm was so accurate, it was able to predict a pregnancy's due date within about a five to seven days margin of error. I'm in the US, with conservative states passing all these draconian anti-abortion laws, I saw a ton of women searching for "period tracking" apps that didn't share data for fear of being tracked by the government. Someone should be able to use technology to track and maintain their own health without fear of big brother snooping around.
It's wild how much data is collected and what companies and governments can do with it.