
IDI Has Built a Profile on Every American Adult - JumpCrisscross
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-05/this-company-has-built-a-profile-on-every-american-adult?cmpid=BBD080516_BIZ
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EazyC
None of this clickbait nonsense compares to what Facebook and Google have on
most of us and the average American. These people that run something like this
and boast about knowing "When the last time you had Chinese food was" are
literally the information industry's equivalent of click farms and scraper
sites.

~~~
codezero
Are Facebook and Google selling granular personal information to third parties
and individuals on specific people by request?

I fully acknowledge they utilize the information they mine about you to
optimize their ad networks, but that's quite a bit different from releasing
the information for a price.

~~~
o0-0o
Yes, they are. You can sign up for retargeting information from them, and
cross reference that with those people when they visit your site. You pay it
forward and pay a bit per segment, but you get the same results.

~~~
codezero
Retargeting doesn't release the information to you. They are selling _access_
to their network under specific conditions. Retargeting just lets me say,
"make sure X sees my ad", it doesn't let me say "I know of X person, send me
all their information so I can do what I want with it."

There's a pretty big difference. Facebook and Google would not be in business
if they let third parties aggregate their detailed personal records.

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x0x0
If you are unaware, Americans can get copies of their records from Lexis-
Nexis, who runs a very similar business. You get one free copy annually under
the FACT act.

Mine ran to over 60 pages.

[https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/access_your_full_file...](https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/access_your_full_file_disclosure.jsp)

~~~
rdtsc
Ha. So the "Full File Disclosure" form has entries for full name, dob, social
security, driver's license info current address, past addresses, phone number.
If they somehow didn't have that info before, they would definitely have it
after you send the form it. Also kind if a neat trick, much like the coupon
trick from the article.

It would be funny if you sent in the form and then if you weren't in the
system, they'd just photocopy the form and send it back to you with a "thank
you" note.

Funny side story about them: I tried to interview there once, many years ago.
They have this antiquated in-house developed query language -- a skill you
couldn't transfer anywhere. So you'd sort of be stuck there, for life.

Up-front said would force me to works on weekends, for what already was
looking like a miserable pay. As if living in Dayton, Ohio wouldn't have been
enough punishment.

Best part was the future manager made a joke about how she likes to "crack her
whip sometimes", which made the other engineer in the room laugh ...
nervously. Was half expecting him pull me to the side and whisper "escape
while you still can".

~~~
x0x0
Wow, bragging _in an interview_ about riding employees hard is special. OTOH,
you should be grateful! That may have saved you from an awful situation. (But
yeah, I bet they're currently whining about an engineering shortage.)

Anyhow, I didn't provide my ssn, just drivers license plus my current address
on a utility bill. I'm sure CA has already sold them the drivers license data
anyway.

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mintplant
> Dubner declined to provide a demo of idiCORE or furnish the company’s report
> on me.

Hmm.

~~~
jakobegger
The entire article reads like a PR piece. There's nothing newsworthy there,
it's just an ad for the company.

~~~
ap22213
Completely agree. When I scanned the article I thought, 'bull shit.'

There are a lot of players in this space, and everyone that I've evaluated so
far is basically selling astrology (i.e. profiles that could match 60% of the
attributes of any sample of the population).

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kelukelugames
"<Company name> built a profile on every American adult" is less clickbaity
than "This company has built a profile on every American adult."

I wish people tried harder to reduce click bait titles.

~~~
cema

      I wish people tried harder to reduce click bait titles.
    

So do I, but do they have incentives to do so? Can we maybe think of ways to
incentivize them?

~~~
kelukelugames
The mods are our only hope.

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tommoor
The fact that they are running coupon websites to actively 'link' profiles
together was surprising, kind of ingenious.

~~~
ktsmith
That's what they get from buying Fluent. They actively take in consumer data
from all kinds of sources and marketing campaigns as well as sell data, and
traffic for those purposes. Fluent does a lot of co-registration path stuff
such as can be seen here
[http://www.nationalconsumercenter.com/flow.aspx](http://www.nationalconsumercenter.com/flow.aspx)
and run sites like
[http://www.sweepstakesaday.com](http://www.sweepstakesaday.com) and
[http://www.getsamplesnow.com](http://www.getsamplesnow.com)

Then you have Q Interactive which they also bought which was largely known for
clickgen.com and coolsavings.com Like Fluent they are big in co-registration,
lead generation, data collection & sales, affiliate marketing etc.

That's really a tiny bit of the data that gets traded on consumers every day.
All kinds of transactions get logged and sold. Credit card declined
transactions are an example that surprises many people however it's the kind
of data that debt consolidation, pre-paid debit card and credit management
companies love.

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kevin_thibedeau
Just a baby. Acxiom has been doing this for 40+ years.

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chris_va
Reinsurance companies (which backstop pretty much all insurance in the US)
also do this, with significantly more private data available. I would imagine
there are quite a few companies that try this.

~~~
op00to
Why reinsurance? What's in it for them versus consumer insurance companies?

~~~
DamnYuppie
Consumer insurers all utilize re-insurers. They essentially loan out the money
to the insurance companies, they are the ones really taking on all the risk so
they get all the underwriting data from the insurance companies.

~~~
op00to
The reinsurers give a shit about profiles about individual policyholders on
the consumer level? I just can't see how that level of effort makes sense on
that scale.

~~~
chris_va
They are the most sophisticated in the industry. They also handle something
like 7T in assets.

The insurance companies themselves are fairly empty pass-thru companies for a
lot policy types. They all use the same forms, call centers, models, brokers.
So the reinsurance companies make sure the models are good.

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Mathnerd314
The interesting part is not that these databases exist; rather, it's a
question of what happens when they're leaked online.

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cmdrfred
This is why I do odd stuff like decline supermarket club cards, I'd wager the
profile they have on me is quite limited.

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bencollier49
Is there not an equivalent to the UK's Data Protection Act in the States?

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rdtsc
> Dubner says most Americans have little to fear. As examples, he cites
> idiCORE uses such as locating a missing person and nabbing a fraud or
> terrorism suspect.

Right. Think of the children and the terrorists.

~~~
tn13
At this stage government must declare everyone a criminal, terrorist and child
abuser and let people work hard and pay taxes to get their names off the list
by the time they die.

~~~
rdtsc
Even better, by acting irrationaly it exposes itself to abuse by those who
know how to manipulate those labels.

Some neighbor doesn't like how you cut the grass -- calls the tip line telling
them he saw you build bombs in your basement. Your house is raided, yet no one
will be punished because they can claim "But I was thinking of our country and
safety".

