The Week
An Arkansas company you've probably never heard of knows more about
you than some of your friends, Google, and even the FBI — and it's
selling your data
posted on June 20, 2012, at 12:33 PM
Feel like you're being watched? Acxiom Corp. is
selling detailed data on more than 190 million Americans, ranging from
their political leanings to their health concerns.
Photo: Brand X Pictures
When you think of the surveillance state, you
usually think of snoopy alphabet-soup government agencies like the FBI,
IRS, DEA, NSA, or TSA, or cyber-snoops at Facebook or Google,
says Natasha Singer in The New York Times.
But there's a company you've probably never heard of that "peers deeper
into American life," and probably knows more about you than any of
those groups: Little Rock–based Acxiom Corp. Jeffrey Chester at the
Center for Digital Democracy has dubbed Acxiom "Big Brother in
Arkansas," while
Gizmodo's Jamie Condliffe calls it the "faceless organization that knows everything about you." Here's what you should know about the company: -[
Full Article]
