They’re a multi-billion dollar industry with a lack of transparency and accountability, with an FTC report concluding that they 'collect consumers’ personal information and resell or share that information with others'. They operate in a sprawling, unregulated ecosystem and are rightfully being called ' the middlemen of surveillance capitalism'. This digital profile is put together from data gathered by most of the tech companies whose products you use and then sold to and by data brokers.ĭata brokers include credit reporting companies, people-finding websites, and many analytics and marketing companies.

It’s not just commercial messaging that targets you based on your digital profile, but even news and entertainment content. People who are less tech-savvy or part of age groups with less experience navigating the internet tend to leave even more breadcrumbs and are usually more susceptible to ads, fake news and other types of manipulation. Are you getting email newsletters, special offers or political fundraising calls that you never signed up for? This is a given, whether you’re using a social platform, shopping online, signing a petition, donating to a cause you care about or signing up for a different newsletter that you’re actually interested in, or any other activity that requires you to provide an email address. Additionally, the types of activity that Google tracks is even more encompassing across devices and operating systems when you have a Gmail address and you use it to create accounts for various services - even if you’re not using Google’s Chrome browser.

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