Hypothetical: $company you're trying to use needs to "verify" you using $inaccurateData from $vendor.
You're absolutely screwed if the verification questions you're asked are relying on the "polluted" answers
Similar vein: if the "polluted" data indicates you might be gay or replublican or musilim or into some seriously unhealthy lifestyle choices like smoking and $someCompany decides that you're a smoker and therefore your too risky to insure.
no data >>> polluted data.
Are you the one taking out credit cards and potentially tanking your credit score? No.
Does it still negatively impact your life? Yes, because the information landlords/banks receive from credit unions only shows the low credit score.
Do the banks/landlords care about the fact that it’s fraud? No.
It’s ultimately YOU who has to do all the leg work to report the fraud, make sure that your credit history is fixed, and that your credit is frozen as a deterrent to for future fraud issues.
So you see how data-brokers having this data on you is equal to not having any data on you if their data is garbage?
Asking for a list of smokers? You'll pop up. Ask for a list of pregnant women? There you are. Likely gun owners? You're on that list too.
None of the people requesting these lists are checking the rest of that person's profile to look for conflicts. They just feed all the profiles into the data machine and run everything en masse.
So does this prevent the data brokers from having an accurate profile on you? Sure. But it is absolutely not equal to them having no data on you.
To be sure it used to be more costly in the times of paper advertising and US human employees. But some records are very expensive at brokers, so still matters.
