Your Other Data

One of my favorite presentation lines is to remind people the real reason for Facebook is it is the world's largest data mining and marketing operation.  And you volunteered for it.

Now, one of the world's largest data companies you DIDN'T opt into is opening up its data to show you what it knows about you.  Little Rock based Acxiom launched its aboutthedata.com website today.

Log on and see if they have you profiled.  The paranoid among us will say that just verified your personal data.

Acxiom's info comes from years and years of mundane data -- your voting records, your public records (driving, taxes, etc), your credit records, your bread crumbs left will purchasing on line.

Big Data crunches all that and tells marketing (or others) exactly what you've done and a reasonable prediction of what you'll do next.

Now, if I could just see the files from NSA on my phone calls also . . .

(FYI - when I tried it, it returned an error.  Some in the media are saying the data base is having troubles, and Acxiom is listing this as a "beta" on the webpages).