Introduction
Approximately 4,000 companies around the world maintain databases with your personal information, including your email address. You’ve never heard of most of them. You didn’t give them permission. Yet they have detailed profiles about you.
These companies are called data brokers. Understanding how they work and what information they have is crucial for protecting your privacy.
What Are Data Brokers?
Data brokers are companies that collect, buy, and sell personal information. They function as middlemen between data sources and data buyers.
Data sources include:
- Public records (birth, death, court records)
- Purchase history
- Browsing behavior
- Social media activity
- Website signups
- Subscription data
- Credit card applications
- Insurance inquiries
- Email addresses
Data buyers include:
- Marketers and advertisers
- Insurance companies
- Credit card companies
- Employers
- Landlords
- Dating apps
- Background check companies
- Anyone willing to pay
Major Data Brokers
The largest data brokers include:
Experian: Maintains profiles on over 1 billion people
Equifax: One of the “big three” credit bureaus
TransUnion: Another major credit bureau
Acxiom: One of the largest data brokers
Zoominfo: B2B data platform
Data.com: Business contact information
Spokeo: Consumer data broker
These companies sell billions of data records annually.
What Data Do They Have?
Typical data broker profiles include:
- Name, address, phone number
- Email address
- Date of birth
- Social security number (sometimes)
- Purchase history
- Browsing behavior
- Income level
- Credit score
- Marital status
- Children names and ages
- Vehicle information
- Religious affiliation
- Political affiliation
- Hobbies and interests
- Online activity
- Social media profiles
It’s a comprehensive profile of who you are as a person and consumer.
How They Get Your Email
Data brokers collect your email through:
- Public records: Government websites, property records, business registrations
- Website signups: You enter your email on a website; the site sells your data
- Data purchases: Buying email lists from other companies
- Aggregation: Combining data from multiple sources
- Scraping: Automated tools collecting emails from websites
- Social media: Extracting email from Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
- Email providers: Some providers sell email metadata
- Data brokers buying from each other: They trade information
Once they have your email, they use it as a key to link all your other information together.
What They Do With Your Email
Your email is valuable because it’s a unique identifier. Data brokers:
- Link your data: Use your email to connect information from different sources
- Create comprehensive profiles: Combine purchase history, browsing, location, interests
- Categorize you: Place you in segments (spender, wealthy, young family, etc.)
- Sell to marketers: Marketers buy segments to target ads
- Sell to other brokers: Other data brokers buy your information
- Update profiles: Continuously update information as new data arrives
- Monitor your behavior: Track what you do online to update profiles
Your email is the key that unlocks your entire profile.
The Business Model
Data brokers make money by selling your information. The typical price:
- Individual records: $1-$10 per person
- Bulk lists: $0.01-$0.50 per email
- Targeted segments: $0.10-$1.00 per record
This seems cheap until you realize they have billions of records. A company with 1 billion records selling at $0.01 each generates $10 million in revenue.
Large data brokers generate $5-10 billion annually through information sales.
Privacy Concerns
Misuse Potential
Your data could be used for:
- Discriminatory lending (blocked for loans due to profile)
- Employment discrimination (not hired due to profile)
- Insurance discrimination (charged higher rates)
- Stalking or harassment
- Identity theft (sold to criminals)
- Price discrimination (charged more for products)
Inaccuracy
Data broker information is often inaccurate because it’s compiled from many sources with inconsistencies. This inaccuracy can damage you if used for important decisions.
Permanent Records
Once data brokers have your information, it never fully goes away. They keep copies, backups, and historical records.
Opting Out of Data Brokers
You have the right to opt out of data brokers under GDPR, CCPA, and some other laws.
Step 1: Use Opt-Out Services
Services like OptOutPrescreen.com allow you to opt out of multiple data brokers simultaneously.
Step 2: Contact Individual Data Brokers
Visit their websites and request removal:
- Acxiom.com
- Experian.com
- Equifax.com
- Spokeo.com
Most have “opt out” links on their privacy pages.
Step 3: Send Official Requests
For GDPR: Send a data subject access request (DSAR) requesting deletion
For CCPA: Use California’s “Right to Delete” if you’re a California resident
Step 4: Use Privacy Services
Services like DeleteMe, PrivacyDuck, and MyDataRemoved handle opt-outs for you (usually $100-200/year).
Best Practices
Use temporary email: Don’t provide your real email to random websites. Fewer places have your data means fewer data brokers can collect it.
Search yourself: Go to major data broker websites and search for yourself. See what information they have.
File opt-out requests: Request removal from major data brokers.
Use data removal services: They handle ongoing removals as your data reappears.
Read privacy policies: Before giving your email to any website.
Unsubscribe from mailing lists: Reduces the paths through which data brokers can collect your information.
Monitor your credit: Check credit reports annually for inaccuracies at annualcreditreport.com.
Conclusion
Your email is a key that data brokers use to build comprehensive profiles about you. These profiles are sold to marketers, employers, insurance companies, and others.
While you can’t stop data brokers entirely, you can limit the information they have by using temporary email, opting out, and monitoring your digital footprint.
FAQ
Q: Can data brokers legally sell my information?
A: Legally, usually yes. But GDPR and CCPA have restricted this in EU and California.
Q: How often do data brokers update information?
A: Continuously. Some update in real-time, others monthly or quarterly.
Q: Can I delete all my data?
A: Not permanently. It reappears when new data is added. Use opt-out services for ongoing removal.