All of us have had junk mail, spam and telemarketing calls. This is a result of the mail list industry. If you haven’t read my book yet I have a chapter on who many of the big players are. it is easy to disrupting your data.
The credit reporting companies are the oldest data brokers on the planet. The regulated credit reporting industry, that you are so familiar with, is only regulated because the companies were taking advantage of the American people. As a result the system that you are now a slave to was created by politicians.
The mailing list industry was also invented by the credit companies. It collects all kinds of information about you and sells any of it to anyone. The various credit reform acts have limited only a small fraction of the information being sold. Today however, the industry represents bit players in a fierce competition to be kin to big brother.
One important point about credit you should be aware of. It is sold as a threat to buyers of reports. The lower credit scores all represent bad and evil people within society. That is the incorrect assumption made by anyone using credit as a gage of personality.
Loyalty cards and credit transactions gather a wealth of information about you. While marketing is considered to be the understood myth in general society, the real purposes are multi-faceted.
Garbage in, Garbage out.
Computers are stupid and data brokers are greedy. To fight back in the age of massive data collection here are just a few examples of actions you can take.
Facebook, Google plus, Vine, Instagram
Like things that you don’t. This really messes up the data collection about your personality. Look for things that have no interest to you or have the exact opposite attraction.
Search Engines Bing, Google, Yahoo
Look for things of no interest. I do this when I am watching movies. Advertising is everywhere, click on things you would never be interested in. Do not fill out forms with your email address it will guarantee spam. Advertisers must pay for clicking and the engines are not proving a free service to you. I don’t know how much to pay for the internet but in America is it not free.
The only way to make the pop-up ads go away is to make it clear, that they are a waste of money.
Local Chain Stores with forced loyalty programs.
Major chains that force you to have a loyalty card are doing this for enhanced data collection. The story feed to the public is crap. It’s not about inventory levels. That is want the bar codes on the items are for the cards are about collecting information about you. You can fight back, simply buy products that you don’t need or want. You don’t have to keep them, return it without leaving the counter. Just make sure no one is standing in line behind you. baby goods, food, athlete’s foot products and bowel movement medications are great targets. Once you pay with a credit card and loyalty card simply tell the clerk you changed your mind. The computer will add those items to your profile anyway. Don’t do this too often at the same store either.
Cell phone apps
Location spoofers are free for both the iPhone and Android platforms. The programs will alter you gps location and not allow accurate information to be tracked.
A special consideration about children
Data brokers are desperate to collect who they are and as much as they can about them. There is little data out there and schools are restricted on the amount of information they can disclose. The answer for the industry is free games and cell phone apps. Right now Silicon Valley is working in over drive. Scores of computer programmers and game developers are being hired. It is the cell phone apps and games for any platform market place. The driving force behind it is the 10 billion dollar a year industry of the data brokers.
Your children are at risk. The habits of game play are being recorded and saved by brokers. Make sure that you tell them when playing any form of game to never even give their own first name. Encourage them to tell the internet they have imaginary pets and different families. Games are designed to specific age groups for a reason; some may collect just a first name and the age of your child. Most play games in the privacy of your own home, connected to a device that has the same outside ip-address, on the same home network as you.
Leave the industry guessing about you, remember garbage in produces garbage out.