Data Privacy
Everybody knows that we are spied on online. Google, Facebook, Apple—we all know that these big companies collect and sell data on us, but the extent of the data collection is not commonly known.
Social Media companies—Google, Apple, and internet service providers—all try to anonymize data when they sell it. They leave out personally identifying data; this is done to try and keep some privacy online, though sometimes the data is still specific enough to find out the actual identities of the individuals.
Data brokers collect immense amounts of data across the internet and sell that data. Your name, phone number, email, address, employment history, interests, hobbies, religious beliefs, political views, friends, family members, etc…
These data brokers make no effort to anonymize you, because selling your information is their business. They use trackers to scalp websites for data, as well as just purchasing data from websites and government databases.
This information is then often sold to anyone. Scammers, advertisers, the US government—even foreign governments.
You can buy lists of Trump voters, Hispanic Americans, dating profiles, religious people—anything really. In 2017 a list of 1,000,000 dating profiles was sold for $153. In 2013 a list of rape victims and HIV-positive people was being sold for 7.9 cents per person.
If you want to protect yourself from this, you are out of luck. Browsers like Firefox and Brave can reduce but not eliminate all trackers, Ad-blockers can eliminate the tracking content in many ads online, and VPNs can hide your location from your ISP and the websites you visit.
Data brokers often do not respond to requests to delete your data, and the ones that do often provide no proof they actually have.
The only way to fix this is to vote for members of Congress who will bring the US into the 21st century in regards to data privacy.
