Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr75wypg0vo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43715884

Your phone tracks you. Your apps collect your data. Then data brokers package and sell it—to the government. No warrant needed. They're buying what they legally can't take, circumventing your 4th Amendment rights with your tax dollars. This isn't conspiracy. It's business as usual. #DigitalPrivacy #DataBrokers #Privacy

Science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist Cory Doctorow @pluralistic speech at the 2025 Ursula Franklin Lecture. >

https://vimeo.com/1059798497

#enshitification #monopsonies #twiddling #LockedUsers #LockedSellers #GAFAM #lecture #AlgorithmicWageDiscrimination#speech #SurveillanceCapitalism #interoperability #competition #regulation #WorkersPower #BigData #sellers #users #TechnoFeudalism #employment #ratings #Uberisation #queries #JediBlue #profiling #enshitified #internet #abuse #DataBrokers #AntitrustLaw #TechLayoffs #RegulatoryCaptures #TechnologicalAbuse #privacy #value #GiantPileOfShit #TechnicalMechanism #rankings #unions #digitalisation #nursing #speech #lecture #video #coporatocracy #monopoly

Loophole In Federal Law Enables Government Agencies To Buy data Gathered From Your Cellphone - Law enforcement agencies buying data about Americans directly from data brokers.

https://rosecoveredglasses.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/loophole-in-federal-law-enables-government-agencies-to-buy-data-gathered-from-your-cellphone/
#databrokers

Aim to be the 9%

Data brokers shouldn't exist:

"Thanks to CoreAI, we can do that with 91 percent of adults all around the world,” the CEO brags.

From Gizmodo:
https://gizmodo.com/data-broker-brags-about-having-highly-detailed-personal-information-on-nearly-all-internet-users-2000575762

Comment period for the CFPB's proposed data broker amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act has been extended until April 2, 2025.

You can submit comments here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/CFPB-2024-0044

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/05/2025-03547/protecting-americans-from-harmful-data-broker-practices-regulation-v-extension-of-comment-period
#lawfedi #privacylaw #privacy #FCRA #databrokers

"Tracking and profiling for advertising purposes present significant risks to consumers and society. This is demonstrated by a report commissioned by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv). The advertising industry’s practice of categorising and influencing individuals based on their preferences, behaviours and vulnerabilities leads to manipulation, discrimination and a loss of trust. vzbv calls on the European Commission to ban tracking and profiling for advertising purposes and ensure the protection of digital fundamental rights.

“Every click on the internet is tracked because it supposedly reveals something about us: our preferences, desires and interests. The uncontrolled data collection by the advertising industry poses great risks to consumers and society,” says Michaela Schröder, Head of Consumer Policy at vzbv. “Consumers are powerless against the practices of the advertising industry. Existing laws are not sufficient. A ban on tracking and profiling is the only way to ensure meaningful consumer protection,” Schröder states."

https://www.vzbv.de/en/personalised-advertising-overdue-regulation

"For 37 years, Congress has completely failed to pass another consumer privacy law. Which is how we got here – to this moment where you can target ads to suicidal teens, gambling addicted soldiers in Minuteman silos, grannies with Alzheimer's, and every Congressional staffer on the Hill.

Some people think the problem with mass surveillance is a kind of machine-driven, automated mind-control ray. They believe the self-aggrandizing claims of tech bros to have finally perfected the elusive mind-control ray, using big data and machine learning.

But you don't need to accept these outlandish claims – which come from Big Tech's sales literature, wherein they boast to potential advertisers that surveillance ads are devastatingly effective – to understand how and why this is harmful. If you're struggling with opioid addiction and I target an ad to you for a fake cure or rehab center, I haven't brainwashed you – I've just tricked you. We don't have to believe in mind-control to believe that targeted lies can cause unlimited harms.

And those harms are indeed grave."

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/20/privacy-first-second-third/#malvertising

#Automakers are collecting #sensitive #data, and selling it w/out your permission – Extensive data collection & #privacy #violations also routinely occurs when we use #cars and #trucks [regardless of manufacturer], much if not all of it likely without our knowledge or #consent. This article will inform you about how, where, when and by whom your data is collected, and the many ways in which is it used, including sale by #databrokers #CFPB is now closed - they fought this https://www.llrx.com/2025/01/automakers-are-collecting-sensitive-data-and-selling-it-without-your-permission/

People-search sites represent an immense privacy risk to the majority of Americans. EasyOptOuts is a low-cost online service which automates opt-out requests on your behalf.

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/02/03/easyoptouts-review/

While opting-out of data brokers can be a very manageable task when done manually, many people are still looking for an automated solution.

I think EasyOptOuts is that solution: It works exceptionally well for a fraction of the cost that Optery, Mozilla, or others would charge you. While it might not be perfect, reducing your data exposure by up to 90% for only $20 certainly makes opting-out of the remaining few data brokers a whole lot easier.

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/02/03/easyoptouts-review/

Was ich mich frage: Die #DSGVO sieht in § 34 bei Datenpannen vor, Betroffene über etwaigen Datenabfluss zu informieren.

Im Fall von #Unacast #GravyAnalytics haben App-Betreiber Daten verkauft. U.a. betroffene Apps sind wohl #CandyCrush, #Tinder, #Grindr und noch einige weitere.

Was genau passiert, wenn zu den Daten keine E-Mail oder Anschrift vorliegt und dennoch personenbezogene Daten wie Standortdaten abgeflossen sind? Wie werden die Betroffenen dann informiert? Gar nicht? Haben halt Pech gehabt?

Weiß da jemand etwas zu?

@bfdi oder @lfdi vielleicht?

#Datenschutz #Privacy #Datenhandel #databroker #databrokers

Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale. The thousands of apps include everything from games like Candy Crush and dating apps like Tinder to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb/ #MobileApps #Privacy #databrokers #infosec

Online Behavioral Ads Fuel the Surveillance Industry—Here’s How

Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called “real-time bidding” (RTB). This process does more than deliver ads—it fuels government surveillance, poses national security risks, and gives data brokers easy access to your online activity

#RTB #onlineadvertising #surveillance #privacy #databrokers #technology #tech

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-surveillance-industry-heres-how

"Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement.

The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games like Candy Crush and dating apps like Tinder to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. Because much of the collection is occurring through the advertising ecosystem—not code developed by the app creators themselves—this data collection is likely happening without users’ or even app developers’ knowledge.

“For the first time publicly, we seem to have proof that one of the largest data brokers selling to both commercial and government clients appears to be acquiring their data from the online advertising ‘bid stream,’” rather than code embedded into the apps themselves, Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Silent Push and who has followed the location data industry closely, tells 404 Media after reviewing some of the data."

https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb/

"Without federal legislative action, many US states are taking privacy matters into their own hands.

In 2025, eight new state privacy laws will take effect, making a total of 25 around the country. A number of other states—like Vermont and Massachusetts—are considering passing their own privacy bills next year, and such laws could, in theory, force national legislation, says Woodrow Hartzog, a technology law scholar at Boston University School of Law. “Right now, the statutes are all similar enough that the compliance cost is perhaps expensive but manageable,” he explains. But if one state passed a law that was different enough from the others, a national law could be the only way to resolve the conflict. Additionally, four states—California, Texas, Vermont, and Oregon—already have specific laws regulating data brokers, including the requirement that they register with the state.

Along with new laws, says Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy at Consumer Reports, comes the possibility that “we can put some more teeth on these laws.”

Brookman points to Texas, where some of the most aggressive enforcement action at the state level has taken place under its Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. Even before the state’s new consumer privacy bill went into effect in July, Paxton announced the creation of a special task force focused on enforcing the state’s privacy laws. He has since targeted a number of data brokers—including National Public Data, which exposed millions of sensitive customer records in a data breach in August, as well as companies that sell to them, like Sirius XM."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/07/1109301/privacy-protection-data-brokers-personal-information/

"A global spy tool exposed the locations of billions of people to anyone willing to pay. A Catholic group bought location data about gay dating app users in an effort to out gay priests. A location data broker sold lists of people who attended political protests.

What do these privacy violations have in common? They share a source of data that’s shockingly pervasive and unregulated: the technology powering nearly every ad you see online.

Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called “real-time bidding” (RTB). This process does more than deliver ads—it fuels government surveillance, poses national security risks, and gives data brokers easy access to your online activity. RTB might be the most privacy-invasive surveillance system that you’ve never heard of."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-surveillance-industry-heres-how