Data Brokers: A Call For Transparency & Accountability

On May 27, 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommended that Congress require the data broker industry to be more transparent about how it collects and uses consumer data generated by online, mobile, and wireless sources and give consumers greater control over their personal information. This report accompanied the recommendation; the report is a study of nine data brokers: Acxiom, CoreLogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics, Intelius, PeekYou, Rapleaf, and Recorded Future. The FTC found that the data brokers collected consumer data from extensive online and offline sources, largely without consumer knowledge about purchases, social media activity, warranty registrations, magazine subscriptions . . .