Part 6: The Data Broker Economy — What Your Info Is Worth

Your personal data is bought and sold every day. But most people have no idea what it's actually worth on the open market.

Here's something to think about:

individually, your data isn't worth much. A single record (name, email, address) might sell for fractions of a cent.

But at scale, it's a massive business.

The data broker industry generates billions in annual revenue.

Companies like Acxiom, LexisNexis, and dozens of less well-known players aggregate records on hundreds of millions of people and sell access to marketers, insurers, employers, landlords, and anyone willing to pay.

And then there are the people search sites, your Spokeos, WhitePages, BeenVerifieds, that package this data into neat little profiles anyone can look up for a few dollars.

The economics create a perverse incentive:

collecting and distributing your data is cheap and profitable. Removing it is time-consuming and often temporary.

This is part of what DoxxScan addresses. We don't just tell you your risk score. We also help you understand where your risk is and give you a plan to start pulling it back.

You can't fix what you can't see, of course.