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Data brokers organize and sell that information to retailers, lenders and other businesses that pitch their products to people grouped in categories like “rural and barely making it” and “ethnic second-city strugglers.”
Some of the information is highly personal, if clearly irrelevant to any marketing campaign. A Chicago-area man recently received a marketing offer from OfficeMax that included the line “Daughter Killed in Car Crash” between his name and address, a reference to an accident that took place a year earlier. The company says that the phrase was included in error, but it offers a clue into the kind of data being collected.
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shaun james bockert 