Ask HN: Good posts/resources on how user data is sold?
My friend just sent me a link to usphonebook.com which apparently has some accurate info on people's addresses and phone numbers (including cell). She asked me how this is possible. I remember reading several good articles on HN about how data is acquired and bought, etc but I couldn't find any links to them after searching. Anyone have good resources explaining this?
Telecoms traditionally published the name associated with every landline in the metro area. Local governments publish the names and addresses of property owners, registered voters, and participants in court proceedings.
In old movies, and some newer ones (Spotlight), you'll see the heroes traveling to drab government offices in the middle of nowhere and standing in line for photocopies. Data brokers [0] in their simplest form are just running this ground game "at scale" and caching the result in a convenient place.
Basic demographic information like you're describing does not require any of the sophisticated conspiracies of modern ad-tech, which is more focused on associating these 20th-century profiles with information about preferences, personality, and even current emotional state in order to bid exactly the right amount to show exactly the right ad at the right time.
In old movies, and some newer ones (Spotlight), you'll see the heroes traveling to drab government offices in the middle of nowhere and standing in line for photocopies. Data brokers [0] in their simplest form are just running this ground game "at scale" and caching the result in a convenient place.
Basic demographic information like you're describing does not require any of the sophisticated conspiracies of modern ad-tech, which is more focused on associating these 20th-century profiles with information about preferences, personality, and even current emotional state in order to bid exactly the right amount to show exactly the right ad at the right time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_broker