Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Fight Back at Marketers: These Data Miners KNow Everything About You

From CNN Money. Article includes an opt-out link, and other opt-out info. If you clear your cache, you lose the cookie, so it may be prudent to do it the snail-mail way instead.

"Acxiom says it has more than 32 billion data records. If you get direct-marketing mail, phone calls from telemarketers, offers by e-mail or ads targeted to you online, there's a pretty good chance the company behind it looked up information about you on Acxiom."

...

"The company tracks all kinds of personal information, from your Web behavior to your Social Security number and your finances. It buys information from many other data aggregators, privacy experts say, so it has all of the details every other data miner has about you -- and it has more information individually than any other company.

"Acxiom is Rome," said Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum. "All roads lead to Rome."

...

"How to opt out: It's more complicated than you might think. To opt out of online advertising, click here.

To stop getting direct mailings and to take yourself off of Acxiom's other directories, you need to fill out an online form. The company will then snail mail you another form that you need to send back for "processing.
"

0 comments:

Post a Comment