Privacy › Module 4 › Lesson 2
What Data Brokers Know About You
Learn how data brokers collect profiles and what you can do to opt out
Opening
Companies you never heard of may know your address
Data brokers collect and sell personal information: names, addresses, relatives, purchasing habits, and political interests. They gather data from public records, loyalty programs, app SDKs, and scraped social profiles. You cannot delete every broker instantly, but opt-out campaigns and privacy laws are improving your options.
1. How Brokers Get Data
Public records
Property deeds, voter rolls, and court filings in many regions are public and scraped.
Commercial sources
Loyalty cards, warranty registrations, and magazine subscriptions feed marketing databases.
Online activity
Cookies, mobile ad IDs, and social scraping build interest and demographic segments.
Data sharing agreements
Apps and sites may share or sell data per their privacy policies—often buried in legalese.
2. Why It Matters
Broker profiles power robocalls, spam, targeted scams, and background checks. Attackers who know your relatives' names and old addresses craft convincing fraud. Breaches at brokers expose millions of records at once. Privacy regulation (GDPR, CCPA, and similar laws) grants rights to access, delete, or opt out in some jurisdictions.
3. Practical Responses
Opt-out requests
Major brokers like Spokeo, Whitepages, and Acxiom offer opt-out forms. Services like delete.me automate repeats.
Limit new inputs
Use aliases for non-essential forms, skip optional fields, and deny app tracking on mobile OS settings.
Reduce public social data
Fewer public posts means less scraping fodder for people-search sites.
Exercise legal rights
Where applicable, submit access and deletion requests under local privacy laws.
Opt-out is a marathon
Brokers republish data. Schedule a yearly reminder to repeat top opt-outs after major life changes (new address, name change).
Knowledge Check
Data brokers primarily:
Multiple choice
Knowledge Check
Public social media profiles can:
Multiple choice
Knowledge Check
True or False: Privacy laws in some regions give you rights to request deletion or opt out of broker data.
True or False