Birds do it. Bees do it. Even the Democrats in DC do it...

Posted at 11:34 AM on March 8, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

From the Washington Post:

A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.

The main question I have, of course is: are they telling people what they're doing?

One wonders -- well at least I do -- whether those interested in protecting privacy should just not vote.

Comments (1)

// One wonders -- well at least I do -- whether those interested in protecting privacy should just not vote.

Not vote? Do you mean as a form of protest? Because they don't collect the data at the polling place, they collect it everywhere else in order to encourage the 'right' people to go to the polling place.

Possible approaches to the data privacy issue are to either 1) attempt to avoid ever divulging anything about yourself to anyone or 2) attempt to mislead anyone inquiring about you. That means either don't subscribe to magazines, or subscribe to magazines you don't like. Don't order from catalogs, or spread orders around to catalogs that might misrepresent your true persona. Data is collected all over the place, the easiest way to start to identify patterns are through spending. If you don't want that data to get released, cash is king. Not credit cards and not checks. But even then, public records exist on home ownership, car ownership and more. There is boatloads of data out there & it doesn't take long (or much money) to start putting together profiles of the 'target' customer (voter). The direct mail people have been doing it for decades.

Posted by bsimon | March 8, 2006 1:11 PM

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