Outlines

In this part of the study guide, we will give you an outline of each of the texts in the source material.

The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information

Author: CBS News
Genre: Video
Year of Publication: 2014

The video in your source material is an excerpt from an episode of the CBS News show “60 minutes”. In the video, the anchor explores the topic of data broking by interviewing various experts on the subject.

The anchor argues that people’s privacy is threatened not only by “government scooping”, but also by data brokers. Data brokers collect people’s data from their online activity for commercial purposes. The data is collected from the internet and from mobile devices by companies which are sometimes unknown and whose activity is vaguely regulated.

A Federal Trade Commissioner is interviewed on the topic. According to her, companies compile dossiers on individuals based on their online activity. Most people are unaware that their personal information is being collected and traded.

The anchor states that there are thousands of data collection companies. The largest data broker in the US is Acxiom, a company that claims having a huge data base but whose representatives declined being interviewed for the show.

An adviser on data broking, who has been researching the topic for several years, claims that people would be surprised to know just how much data about them is stored and traded. Such data includes information about medical conditions or sexua...