Author : Daniel Sitter
Data mining, aggregating, cross-referencing databases… call it what you will, there is a tremendous amount of available information concerning each of us floating in cyberspace, ripe for the picking. There are people and companies collecting it, constantly, consistently. Learn, that despite our best efforts to protect our privacy, to cover our "nakedness," there is virtually very little that can be effectively done to stop or even slow this practice. This is perfectly legal and most companies have no malicious intent. This information is collected for marketing purposes. Where this practice becomes dangerous is when our precious and private information falls into criminal hands.I recently read an article concerning marketing relationships between products and people. Jason Kolb had written "Google Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself." He discusses the implications of this type of search data being acquired by politicians and any other group imaginable. Many companies, and likely, politicians as well, use data-mining tools to extract relationships and marketing potential out of seemingly unrelated data. They cross-reference information and data from a wide variety of sources, gathering whatever type of information or patterns that they are looking for at the time. This practice is quite commonplace.In the real world, there are data brokers or aggregators such as ChoicePoint and Acxiom. These data brokers "collect information from public records, criminal databases, medical records, motor vehicle records, credit information and other sources, repackaging it into raw data and reports that they sell to many businesses as well as local, state, and federal government agencies." While this data collection and research can be beneficial in criminal investigations and insurance related situations, it can also be disastrous if this sensitive data fell into the wrong hands. They and others have been in the news lately because of data losses and security breaches fueling escalating fears of widespread incidents of identity theft.We think we are secure and private, but try as we may, to the contrary, we are quite transparent... naked to the world. Aggregators collect data from pharmacies, medical facilities, credit card companies, schools, libraries and countless other sources of information. They can "paint" an accurate and disturbingly alarming portrait of each of us in real time. A marketer can decipher and assemble data so accurately that they know, for instance, who your doctor is, what medical specialty they are experienced in, what you are seeing the physician for, what medications you take for it, where you buy your prescriptions and even the time of day that you prefer to do so. They know how much money you spend at the grocery store each week as well as the brand names of the items that you regularly buy. They know if you prefer sugar-free, unsalted or caffeine-free snacks.They examine your credit card and bank statements. They know what make of car you drive, where and how often it's serviced, where you buy gasoline and how often you refuel. They collect data on each and every purchase you make, where and when you make it, and learn your purchasing habits and cycles so that they have a good idea when you will be ready to purchase again. The financial information in your credit file is minute when compared with this additional data that is constantly being compiled about you. Oh, by the way, they have all your credit information as well.When you couple this information with the now-seemingly mild data collected by MySpace, Google and other online aggregators, marketers can purchase any relevant data concerning you that meets their needs, cross-analyze it and study patterns to extract the information that they want. In this manner, they do indeed know you quite well.Scared? You should be. There are few secrets anymore. We live transparent lives and are more vulnerable than ever.Daniel Sitter, author of both the popular e-book, Learning For Profit, and the highly anticipated book, Superior Selling Skills, has extensive experience in sales, training, marketing and personal development over a successful 25 year career. http://www.learningforprofit.com/ Read his blog http://www.idea-sellers.com/
Category : Legal:Identity-Theft
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