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Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

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Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#221

Post by kalleboo »

samstave wrote: post #112
pandabear187 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can provide all the sources used for the company I used to work for, however that's irrelevant if you as you said wanted to learn how to fish. Any and every company selling data and there are thousands is in fact a source you would need to deal with to be removed from the sites that sell it. If you think this answer isn't specific enough, you're not going to achieve anything by me spoonfeeding you info for one such…

> I can provide all the sources used for the company I used to work for, however that's irrelevant if you as you said wanted to learn how to fish. Personally, I think this should be a requirement of the government: " HERE IS A LIST OF ALL PEOPLE THAT ARE COLECTING AND SELLING YOUR PERSONAL DATA, CLICK THIS BUTTON TO DELETE YOUR RECORDS " sort of thing... it should be a mandated public service of regulation. Then, the…

It used to be like this in many European states back in the 80's. If you wanted to keep a computerized database of personal information, you had to apply to the state for a permit, so there was central control of all the lists. Of course this was extremely difficult to enforce... Eventually that type of legislation was replaced by the EU data directive.

e.g. In Sweden: http://www.datainspektionen.se/om-oss/historik/

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#222

Post by tankenmate »

intended wrote: post #199
ams6110 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we forget that not long ago everyone's name, address, and phone number was published in the phone book (unless you paid extra for an unlisted number), and hospital admissions were published in the daily newspaper. It used to be unremarkable, and now people shriek "privacy!!" when it's discovered that some mundane detail about their life is not a closely held secret.

No we don't forget. Those systems were analog and could only be scaled to a certain extent, after which you ran into management overhead. So in the example given by the OP, dominoes would not be updating your name in the directory. That would be data that evaporated and never made it to record. To increase the contrast - whole new types of clustering and analysis are now possible, at the moment a new data point is re…

Indeed, the amount and types of published information hasn't broadly changed, what has changed is the information horizon; the ability to search for information and analyse it. The world hasn't become smaller, our ability to see is much much wider. The information horizon is much further away from zero than it used to be (thanks to the computer's / big data's ability to communicate and analyse), and it's impact on society is much more than just privacy.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#223

Post by lucb1e »

Sephr wrote: post #79
e0m wrote: post #55

If you have your own domain name with a wildcard, it's really helpful to enter: someservice@mydomain.com as your email. That way if it leaks you'll know who did it and can setup much more robust rules to block. I'll use the domain name as the main address so I remember which name goes to which site. For physical address mailings, you can hyphenate (or use a middle name) as the service. So First Service-Last as the ad…

I've been doing exactly this for a while. Here is my list of companies that have leaked the email address I gave them to spammers: https://gist.github.com/eligrey/5084991

Awesome work!

I do the same with email addresses, but receive very little spam. Mostly I block addresses that start spamming me with newsletters. I've thought about keeping a list, but most companies actually stick to the Dutch anti-spam laws (which are quite good).

Only Dropbox and one personal contact ever actually sold/leaked my email address, and Paypal of course but they hand my email address out to all merchants so they're almost certainly not to blame themselves (not beyond the fact that they hand it out in the first place).

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#224

Post by mysticmarvel »

asperous wrote: post #189
monodeldiablo wrote: post #163

I've had the misfortune to be present for an in-person demo of a verification service nearly a decade ago. It involved those relationship questions ("Which one of the following people have you not lived with in the last 5 years?") that are incredibly creepy. I was shocked that they had so much data on me -- I have no debt, no credit cards, no house, no car, no bills, and I had always entered informal rent agreements…

Their privacy policy says they don't do this: https://www.dominos.com/en/#/content/privacy/

That link at the bottom of the email states that they unsubscribe you from the mailing list.

Odd how I always seem to get more spam, but from different companies, after I click one. Almost as though all I've done is confirm that the email address actually exists, and is therefore more valuable to sell on to others.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#225

Post by edwhitesell »

jey wrote: post #213
edwhitesell wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see much larger bulk rates via the USPS for something like "environmental impact". For example, I'm currently getting no less than 3 letters per week from Spectrum (formerly TWC) promoting their new triple-play plans. I drop all of them in the recycling bin. I couldn't care less about their bottom line, but I do care about the environmental impact. At 3x per week, it probably costs them around USD$0.80/wee…

Why does this happen? Is there some subcontractor who just bills by the piece so they don't care about de-duping the idiotic mailmerge that has 5 entries for each entity I'm affiliated with?

In the case I listed above, these are separate, distinct letters. Certainly from an automated process, but clearly all part of a larger marketing program.

In the ones like Dell (which I've also experienced in the past), I suspect there's some metric involved for getting the most contacts for "coverage". The reality is unless they were tracking my moves to different companies, there could be different people with the same name. In that sense, I'm very glad they can't correlate with employment data.

There's also the idea that sending to multiple people within a company means someone may see something they want and try to go through the procurement process because of the catalog, rather than because "IT" says it's time for a refresh.

Not that I agree with any of those practices, for a number of reasons, but I could understand the case for them.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#226

Post by pc86 »

eonw wrote: post #202
literallycancer wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I told you there are countries where you can use a credit card, and still have reasonable expectations about privacy, where the information gatherer must erase personal information on demand and bears the burden of erasing it and notifying everyone they sold the information to erase it too?

id like to know which ones? id consider relocating.

1. They don't know, but assume some Western European country fits that description.

2. They misunderstand German privacy laws.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#227

Post by cmdrfred »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #166
notwhoyouthink wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get four catalogs a month to three different people, one of which gets two catalogs; one addressed to their role as Vice President, and one as Boardmember. We don't even want _one_ of them. It's not like we're going to see a new printer in a catalog and say "hey, sounds like a great buy!"

Maybe the solution is to sign up about 3000 people at every address you've ever lived at, if all of us sign up for hardcopy catalogues everywhere under every variant of our own names and fictitious names maybe they'll eventually stop or go out if business.

Why bother yourself or the new residents of your home? Sign up any Dell related outfits (resellers, etc) for them instead.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#228

Post by [deleted] »

tgarma1234 wrote: post #137

Reading this thread I can answer the question because I have worked in this industry and given/sold data to Intellius specifically. There are three main sources of ALL of the data: 1. Acxiom http://www.acxiom.com/ 2. Experian http://www.experian.com/ 3. Neustar https://www.neustar.biz/ Acxiom got it's big start by developing a way to copy phone books in the 90s and they won a court case that sided with them saying th…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#229

Post by criddell »

szc wrote: post #215
criddell wrote: post #26

Last year I was getting constant calls and snail mail about buying an extended car warranty on a car that I no longer own. I asked the place where I bought my car if they sell that information and they claimed not to. So where do these sleazy companies get that data? The DMV? This year, I'm getting two or three calls every week about a buying a home security system and monitoring. I don't understand why these calls a…

The "home security system" calls could be social engineering to find out if your home is protected or not. Just by listening to what they say and not saying you already have one is enough to tell the caller what they want to know.

I would never tell them anything, but I have listened to the recording and pressed '1' to speak to a representative and when I do that, nobody ever picks up. It's baffling.

Re: Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

#230

Post by mxk17 »

There are far too many too name and they each collect data from different sources - both primary and secondary. Then the data is shared between them through intermediaries that would form a very long list. This duplication/redundancy makes it impossible to remove your data completely from all the owners. Experian Acxiom DataLogix TransUnion Innovis Woodbridge/Thomson Reuters DNB
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