Unfortunately it’s not just the government spying on all of us. The business of tracking our actions is the fastest growing segment of our economy. Government is merely gobbling up what others are making billions of dollars each year are doing. Subjects that make the news like the NSA or local police monitoring to our cellular phones makes the headlines. As a result the people are outraged, yet depending on what is installed on the cell phone, namely applications any number of companies are coping and selling that same information over and over. The applications will read your text messages, emails and the GPS location to figure out where you are and who you are near and your contact list lets them know who you know. They will assemble profiles about you and the friends you are near instantly.
Some applications will give you popups on your phone for deals that you are near. Don’t you think it more than a little spooky that it is all the stuff you would be interested in? Just because you don’t have the application installed doesn’t mean the data about you isn’t known. The companies that build these applications just buy the data from others.
CBS ran a story on the largest data broker is Acxiom, a marketing giant that brags it has, on average, 1,500 pieces of information on more than 200 million people. This should scare most people that actually passed high school math and know what an average actually means. Consider for a second the 600 thousand people that are estimated to be homeless and have little or no data about them beyond existence and how they must contribute to the average.
The problem exists on many of the devices that you use. Some you would never think of, others like what you do on your computer have been known about for years.
For the last few years credit data has been stolen from you. Your movements and buying habits are cataloged and sold and used in ways to predict your behavior. If you ever have had a phone call or know someone that has, from the credit industry questioning charges on a card. You should realize that this activity has become commonplace.
It is the threat of theft itself that the credit industry uses to mask its real motives. How else could it get millions of Americans to agree to allow anyone to monitor their activity? The irony is that merchants don’t get paid when fraud is detected. They can have the money taken from their account months after a transaction has occurred. Further any merchant Id that is known to the system is barred from receiving payments as soon as it is discovered. Banking institutions are also barred from the system as soon as they are discovered.
An interesting thing happens within the credit card process, when you use a terminal at a store the merchant that collects the information called a credit provider is not a bank or fall under regular banking rules. They steal the information from the transaction and sell it too. Now there is not law against this activity and it is used by the industry to “protect you” from fraudulent charges. That is what you are told actually the system is about getting information from you.
You might notice that merchants are well above banks and consumers. An interesting thing about this chart the banks don’t really lose. Most of the money is paid bank within the United States though the FDIC insurance fund. No one knows what the real loss is but I would guess that it is in the millions not billions.
The government and the NSA are really acting as a scapegoat for a much larger issue that even the so called well informed realize. Identity theft makes the headlines so often because of a lack of security within the system allows it to scare you enough, to allow your movement to be tracked.
It is natural to feel disgusted and helpless but there is a ray of hope. I have written a new book “A Right To property” which is a rallying cry with real answers to some very tough questions. It all starts with a simple question. Who really owns your name?