Why do companies buy and sell your information? What do they do with it
In: Economics
Mostly for analytics and statistical data.
Companies, such as the SCL Group, sell such data to advertising, media, political campaigns, social media, pretty much anyone.
The trend is now data mining and behavioral consulting businesses who will use this data to build strategies in other industries, such as marketing.
However, there have been massive scandals recently in how this data is sourced. *Cambridge Analytica*- a subsidiary of SCL Group- was caught hacking tens of millions of Facebook accounts using Russian software.
The subsidiary was set up by Steve Bannon *(Trump’s campaign strategist, WH CoS)*, the Mercer sisters *(Republican funders, propagandists)* and Alexander Nix *(political consultant, SCL director)* for the purpose of studying social media users political leanings during the 2016 Trump campaign. Then they would use the results to dissiminate false information back onto Facebook to manipulate the voters.
Facebook users would be clicking on game apps and surveys enabling Nix’s software to infiltrate accounts accessing their personal content, which isn’t illegal technically. So when they were caught, the UK government just kicked them out the country and they then just set up shop elsewhere, hiding in a chain of other subsidiaries.
They would also sell this data to call centres and marketing companies. Hence, why you get these annoying cold calls. Media franchise also use this data for their demographics, as in news, TV content, etc.
A good example is this BS about *”Covid being a biotech weapon released by a Wuhan lab”*. Conservative strategists have clearly used such data to build a narrative on social media as weaponized information for their own political gain.
If you don’t want people accessing your online content and accounts, stay away from surveys and apps and start using anonymously.
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