What data brokers actually know about you (it's more than you think)

When people picture a 'data broker profile', they usually imagine a phone-book entry: name, address, maybe a phone number. The reality is far more detailed. Large brokers maintain thousands of attributes per person, assembled from public records, loyalty programs, app SDKs, and purchases from other brokers.

A typical profile links your current and past addresses, relatives and roommates, estimated income, property records, vehicle registrations, political affiliation inferred from donations, and shopping behavior segmented into categories like 'expecting parent' or 'diabetes interest'. None of this requires hacking — it's aggregated legally and sold openly.

Location data brokers add another layer: anonymized-in-name-only movement data bought from mobile apps. Studies have repeatedly shown that four spatio-temporal points are enough to re-identify 95% of individuals in a supposedly anonymous dataset.

The good news: privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA give you the right to demand deletion, and brokers are legally required to comply. The bad news: there are hundreds of them, each with its own opt-out process, and most re-add you within months. That's why recurring, automated removal is the only approach that works long-term.