Acxiom, the Quiet Giant of Consumer Database Marketing | NYTimes.com

Posted on June 24, 2012

Acxiom, the Quiet Giant of Consumer Database Marketing | NYTimes.com.

This is extremely upsetting.

You should be as outraged as I am.

“Few consumers have ever heard of Acxiom. But analysts say it has amassed the world’s largest commercial database on consumers — and that it wants to know much, much more. Its servers process more than 50 trillion data “transactions” a year. Company executives have said its database contains information about 500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points per person. That includes a majority of adults in the United States.”

[…]

“Privacy advocates say they are more troubled by data brokers’ ranking systems, which classify some people as high-value prospects, to be offered marketing deals and discounts regularly, while dismissing others as low-value — known in industry slang as “waste.” Exclusion from a vacation offer may not matter much, says Pam Dixon, the executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit group in San Diego, but if marketing algorithms judge certain people as not worthy of receiving promotions for higher education or health services, they could have a serious impact. “Over time, that can really turn into a mountain of pathways not offered, not seen and not known about,” Ms. Dixon says.”