What internet data brokers have on you, and how you can get it back [Video]

Data brokers have long operated in the shadows of the internet, quietly amassing unprecedented amounts of personal information on billions of people across the globe, but few realize just how deep this data collection really goes.

In an age where every move you make online — every click, every purchase, every “like” — is meticulously harvested, packaged, and sold for profit, aggregated personal data has become a valuable commodity, and the global data broker industry is proof of that.

The rise of artificial intelligence tools poses the risk of even more personal information being scraped from the internet and an already opaque world of data brokering becoming even more aggressive, and that is heightening data privacy concerns. A 2023 study from Pew Researchfound that the American public increasingly says it does not understand what companies do with their data. According to Pew, 67% of Americans say they “understand little to nothing about what companies are …