Where does the data advertisers have about us exist and can we get access to it? I’ve heard that each of us has an advertiser ID that tags each of us as soon as we join a new platform. It knows where we went to middle school, our teachers names and even our personality. I have it on good authority that even Chegg has access to your footprint across the internet. I would love to get access to all of this as I could see it being a more complete psychological profile than MBTIs or BigFive personality tests
In theory, if crafted well enough, you could use it to help visualize in a flowchart timeline:
• Your life story and common patterns between different chapters of life
• How you like to work, what your preferences are in people, content or relationships
• What others with similar life trajectories have done at your stage of life
Where does this data exist, could I ever hope to get access to it in a useable form (or buy it from advertisers)?
There are several big agencies that combine data for various purposes (generally advertising-related). It’s often called "data enrichment"https://www.acxiom.co.uk/customer-data/enrichment-data/
If you use the same email address to register with two companies that both share some data with the central agency then both learn a bit more about you. But that it pretty much always (in theory) abstracted data points based on the granular data each individual company keeps to themselves.
Most personal data tends to be 1st party data that you provide directly to a company voluntarily (eg if you have insurance then you give them your date of birth, weight, address, etc) and it’s tied to your account that you’ve chosen to set up with them. They will have a unique id for you in their database.
Most first party data points don’t leave the organisation you gave them to (google knows where you’ve been if you check in at a location in google maps (or allow it to track personal granular location automatically) and what YouTube videos you’ve watched. But they’re not selling that information.
What organisations tend to do is aggregate it and assign you to a number of groups. Country, age-band, education level, interests. Now, as we mostly know, those can get pretty damn specific, especially when combined, eg: people who live in zipcode A, have a college degree, have a driving license but not a passport, shop at B, order food from McDonalds, are vegetarian, own a dog, have a child under 1, and use websites C, D & E.
It might even get down to: this user graduated in 2002 from X, is vegetarian but gets Uber Eats from McDonalds store Y and has never ordered a non-beef product in the past 10 months. But it’s not going to include your individual order history.
This is super helpful context on how the data enrichment process works. If you wanted today to get access to your data at the level of:
“user graduated in 2002 from X, is vegetarian but gets Uber Eats from McDonalds store Y and has never ordered a non-beef product in the past 10 months.”
Would you reach out to a company like acxiom to request it directly, or is identity usually completely abstracted away due to consumer privacy regulation?
I believe it should be abstracted but they must hold some form of a common ID (email etc) in order to facilitate the “enrichment”. Maybe it’s done in a public key/private key way. I don’t actually know.
In terms of getting access I think you’d need to become a partner/customer of something like Acxiom.
If you just want your personal data then you can get it (certainly in Europe or for companies based there) by doing a “subject access request” but I think you might have to originate those with organisation you’ve shared data with.
For the UK (and Europe?) look into “Data Controller” vs “Data Processor”. Third parties running services tend to be “processors” who have responsibilities, but it’s the data controller (normally the first party thing you’ve used directly and given your data to directly) who are ultimately responsible for ensuring it’s handled compliantly and getting you access. Eg: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/controllers-and-processors/controllers-and-processors/what-are-controllers-and-processors/
Quiet the conspiracy theory. Where do you hear such a thing?
met a guy who started the company that creates those terms of service agreements that allow them to do what they want with your data
So I’ve worked in it for 20+ years. There is no single data point attached to you. You can track users based on ip address, cookies, logins, session variables, and a whole lot of other things. There is no single point that attaches to a person. Hand your phone to the person next to you,the phone isn’t magically going to know its not you searching. Or install a new browser and connect to a public wifi, it will also have no idea who you are.
Right, it depends on the advertiser network. I gathered some assumptions from the Social Dillema, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0 but the truth is a bit more nuanced
Do you think it possible to access or somehow purchase your data from advertising networks like facebook or google? If advertisers are able to get access, could you not buy it yourselfThese types of companies usually have a place where you can request to receive all of the data they have on you.
For example, google
companies will typically have something in their TOS or privacy policies that has an email or a link.
I’m not sure about all this “purchasing of data” yak.