Acxiom, the Quiet Giant of Consumer Database Marketing - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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shared by Javier E on 17 Jun 12
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Acxiom. But analysts say it has amassed the world’s largest commercial database on consumers — and that it wants to know much, much more. Its servers process more than 50 trillion data “transactions” a year. Company executives have said its database contains information about 500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points per person. That includes a majority of adults in the United States.
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But privacy advocates say they are more troubled by data brokers’ ranking systems, which classify some people as high-value prospects, to be offered marketing deals and discounts regularly, while dismissing others as low-value — known in industry slang as “waste.”
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Julie Brill, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, says she would like data brokers in general to tell the public about the data they collect, how they collect it, whom they share it with and how it is used. “If someone is listed as diabetic or pregnant, what is happening with this information? Where is the information
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It has recruited talent from Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com and Myspace and is using a powerful, multiplatform approach to predicting consumer behavior that could raise its standing among investors and clients.
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Acxiom has its own classification system, PersonicX, which assigns consumers to one of 70 detailed socioeconomic clusters and markets to them accordingly. In this situation, it pegs Mr. Hughes as a “savvy single” — meaning he’s in a cluster of mobile, upper-middle-class people who do their banking online, attend pro sports events, are sensitive to prices — and respond to free-shipping offers.
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Analysts say companies design these sophisticated ecosystems to prompt consumers to volunteer enough personal data — like their names, e-mail addresses and mobile numbers — so that marketers can offer them customized appeals any time, anywhere.
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Acxiom maintains its own database on about 190 million individuals and 126 million households in the United States. Separately, it manages customer databases for or works with 47 of the Fortune 100 companies. It also worked with the government after the September 2001 terrorist attacks
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This year, Advertising Age ranked Epsilon, another database marketing firm, as the biggest advertising agency in the United States, with Acxiom second.
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it’s as if the ore of our data-driven lives were being mined, refined and sold to the highest bidder, usually without our knowledge — by companies that most people rarely even know exist.
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if marketing algorithms judge certain people as not worthy of receiving promotions for higher education or health services, they could have a serious impact.
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“Over time, that can really turn into a mountain of pathways not offered, not seen and not known about,”
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Unlike consumer reporting agencies that sell sensitive financial information about people for credit or employment purposes, database marketers aren’t required by law to show consumers their own reports and allow them to correct errors.
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ACXIOM’S Consumer Data Products Catalog offers hundreds of details — called “elements” — that corporate clients can buy about individuals or households, to augment their own marketing databases.
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the catalog also offers delicate information that has set off alarm bells among some privacy advocates, who worry about the potential for misuse by third parties that could take aim at vulnerable groups. Such information includes consumers’ interests — derived, the catalog says, “from actual purchases and self-reported surveys” — like “Christian families,” “Dieting/Weight Loss,” “Gaming-Casino,” “Money Seekers” and “Smoking/Tobacco.” Acxiom also sells data about an individual’s race, ethnicity and country of origin. “Our Race model,” the catalog says, “provides information on the major racial category: Caucasians, Hispanics, African-Americans, or Asians.” Competing companies sell similar data.
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“At the same time, this is ethnic profiling,” he says. “The people on this list, they are being sold based on their ethnic stereotypes. There is a very strong citizen’s right to have a veto over the commodification of their profile.”
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race coding may be incorrect. And even if a data broker has correct information, a person may not want to be marketed to based on race.
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In its system, a store clerk need only “capture the shopper’s name from a check or third-party credit card at the point of sale and then ask for the shopper’s ZIP code or telephone number.” With that data Acxiom can identify shoppers within a 10 percent margin of error, it says, enabling stores to reward their best customers with special offers. Other companies offer similar services. “This is a direct way of circumventing people’s concerns about privacy,” says Mr. Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.