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Data brokers, otherwise known as data aggregators or information brokers, are businesses that collect, collate, and sell personal data about individuals and companies. They stay in the shadows, acquiring their information from all kinds of sources: online activities, public records, and other data providers. Data brokers gather this data, package it, and sell it to organizations that can use it for various purposes: marketing, risk assessment, and people search.

There are different kinds of data brokers specializing in their scope of operations. Understanding these types is very critical if one desires to get any sense of the data brokerage industry's complexity and serious impact on individuals and society.

People Data Brokers

People data brokers gather and sell data containing personal information about people. A type of data broker that aggregates data from various sources, notably:

They collect all kinds of information, including:

 

 

• Public records: voter registration, property records, court documents

 

 

• Social media: social media accounts, online activities, and connections

 

 

• Online behaviors: browsing history, search queries, online purchases

 

 

• Mobile devices: location data, mobile app usage, device information

 

 

Sellers of people data broker this information to other organizations who can utilize such information for a variety of purposes, including:

 

 

• Marketing and Advertising: targeting people with certain traits with personalized advertisements.

 

 

• People search: Visit BlockShopper finding missing people for various reasons, such as collecting one's debt or skipping tracing

 

 

• Risk assessment: assessment of a person's creditworthiness or potential risk

 

 

Examples of the most prevalent people data brokers include Acxiom, Experian, and Equifax. What these companies do is maintain really gigantic archives of personal information and then sell these to organizations across various industry sectors.

Business Data Brokers

Business data brokers focus on collecting and reselling data about other businesses or organizations. Data brokers of this nature gather data from:

 

 

• Public records: Business occupational registrations, licenses, and permits

 

 

• Financial reports: The company's revenue and profit-and-loss statements are also analyzed.

 

 

• Social media: Company social media profiles; corporate activities online

 

 

• Industry reports: Market research, trends, analysis of the industry performance

 

 

Business data brokers resell this information to organizations for a number of uses, such as:

• Market research: Industry trends, competitor analysis • Sales and Marketing: Identification of prospects and customer targeting for campaigns • Risk assessment: Company's creditworthiness, risk assessment

Hence, some of the famous business data brokers include Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover's, and ZoomInfo. These companies give a feel of insight into the businesses, and on the basis of this, organizations make decisions.

Health Data Brokers

Health data brokers are businesses that gather and sell data about a person's health and medical record. A data broker of this sort aggregates data from the following sources:

 

 

• Medical records: EHRs, claims data, prescription history

 

 

• Wearable devices: fitness trackers, health monitors, other wearable gadgets

 

 

• Online behaviors: health-related searches, online forums, social media activities

 

 

Brokers of health data sell it to companies that use this data for a variety of purposes, including pharmaceutical marketing, health research, and insurance underwriting.

Some of the notable health data brokers include IQVIA, Optum, and Meditech. Companies such as this are very important in the healthcare sector as they unravel relevant insights pertaining to patient behavior and health trends.

Location Data Brokers

Location data brokers deal in collecting and selling information relating to an individual's history of movement and location patterns. This class of data broker aggregates data from sources such as:

 

 

• Mobile devices: GPS data, Wi-Fi connections, cell tower triangulation

 

 

• IoT devices: Smart home devices, connected cars, etc.

 

 

• Online behaviors: Geolocation-based searches, check-ins, and activities on social media sites

 

 

Location data brokers resell this information to organizations that use it for a variety of use cases, including the following:

Location-based marketing: Targeting individuals with contextually relevant ad serving based on the user's exact location. Urban planning: Understanding congestion, population density, and urban development. National security: Tracking people, monitoring suspicious activity

Some of the notable location data brokers include LocationSmart, Near, and Placer.ai. The firms help organizations make informed decisions through insight gained on human movement patterns.

Risks and Concerns of Data Brokerage

There are various concerns and risks that this raising of the data brokerage industry raises, which include:

 

 

• Privacy: This questions the collection and selling of personal data without the consent of the person.

 

 

• Security: Prospect of data breaches and unauthorized access.

 

 

• Discrimination: the use of data to track and discriminate against some groups or individuals;

 

 

• Obscurity: the opaqueness of practices relating to the collection and use of data.