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Data Broker Opt-Out List

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Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#161
post #92
post #30

If anyone cares, there are a nontrivial amount of companies who have your 'private' LinkedIn info. I don't know if they make fake accounts to friend you, recruiter profiles, or buy it from LinkedIn. I asked one to please remove my info, and they sent me a CCPA form. I told them I didn't live in California, and an agent acted confused and told me to just fill it out, it's the only way to remove it. In short, don't tru…

Two years ago, I got a real 'welcome to LinkedIn' email on my relatively new company email address with my real name that couldn't have been extracted from the address. Password reset did not work, no account existed. Best guess is someone there messed up when they merged some internal email lists.

LinkedIn used to (maybe still does) push users to "see who's on LinkedIn" by connecting your contacts.

They then maintained this connection indefinitely without telling the user and also used it to spam people under your name.

They used this system to send my ex-girlfriend an invite to join me on LinkedIn. Absolutely repulsive and infuriating.

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#162
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being on vacation in europe doesn't make you a resident

The EU says individuals, and I've always understood it to be anyone in the EU countries plus EU citizens anywhere. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...

> individuals in the EU

I don't think it applies to EU citizens overseas IMO. At least I haven't signed up for anything that asked if I was an EU citizen or not.

Would get really messy because there are lots of EU citizens out there that don't know it through jus sanguinis.

Meanwhile a lot of financial institutions do ask if you're a US citizen because it ups their reporting requirements.

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I talk to them and ask the caller for information that reveals the company behind the call; then complain via the agency that manages the donotcall lists in my country. Like oh yeah, double glazing, yeah, send an appraiser to my house, can I have a phone number in case I need to cancel? What company ID badge will the appraiser have? I don't get many calls through though.

I usually get calls from people who want to extract my credit card information during the call or take over my Windows computer using a remote desktop program during the call. So most of the times I asked for call back information they hung up.

> take over my Windows computer using a remote desktop program during the call.

I wish I got calls like this, it seems like it could be a lot of fun.

What kind of stuff are they usually looking for? What would be the best ways of fucking with them?

Are they dumb enough to be somehow enticed or tricked into downloading an executable from the "victim" system and running it on their own systems?

*The only calls I get are the car warranty scam and the credit card debt scam. Unfortunately, not much entertainment value to be had with those.

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#164
post #30

If anyone cares, there are a nontrivial amount of companies who have your 'private' LinkedIn info. I don't know if they make fake accounts to friend you, recruiter profiles, or buy it from LinkedIn. I asked one to please remove my info, and they sent me a CCPA form. I told them I didn't live in California, and an agent acted confused and told me to just fill it out, it's the only way to remove it. In short, don't tru…

Now the question is: Do they keep a track of these CCPA forms? Is there a data collection of people asking to remove their info.

This is an interesting question. I was technical lead for CCPA and GDPR implementation at my company. We keep hashes of email addresses that have asked to be forgotten and we compare new email signups with the hash list to make sure we never collect their information. Both laws allow companies to keep lists of requests but we like to be extra secure.

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea how sketchy these companies are. ZoomInfo (public company) for example provides a free plugin for sales people which is scanning email for all the email signatures and then they sell all that data to their customers. Even crazier is they take data from their customer’s CRM systems. DiscoverOrg is buying data from third parties without really knowing how they got the data. There are a bunch of apps an…

I used to operate a dozen or so small web sites. A spammer once offered me a crazy amount of money for the mailing lists. When I declined, he offered an even crazier amount of money to buy all the web sites, in their entirety, including mailing lists and social media accounts. I ended up selling him the one web site that didn't have a mailing list and only rudimentary social media presences. I bought a new car and mo…

I bet a blog post about your story would get a lot of votes here. I'd read it.

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So only for those in Europe and CA? Even re: California, are you sure CCPA implies these data brokers have to respect your opt-out for this particular purpose? (For reference, the opt-outs existed before CCPA and I believe GDPR as well... so you're saying they gained teeth afterward?)

Well, I guess I know what I’m doing the next time I’m in Europe (or even just their airspace?).

Or the next time you're using Tor with an EU exit node...

Re: Data Broker Opt-Out List

#167

I'm curious if anyone has any info on the business model here. There seems to be a ridiculous number of data brokers, so with this amount of competition, the marginal profit must be low. Online advertisers probably get better bank for buck just using Google's or Facebook's pre-targeted profiles. Banks and financial institutions and real background checks probably stick with the few big ones (credit bureaus, or lexis…

A lot of the data brokers specialize in specific audiences. For example, I work with a lot of physician data at my job and a ton of companies sub-specialize in specific aspects of that market.
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