What Is Personal Information About You Actually Worth?

Happy Fathers' Day!

As all you dads bask in the love and respect of family, friends and creditors while loving parents, spouses, children and pets cheer, we thought we would raise the question of worth.

But let's be clear: this is not some fuzzy encomium to the higher value of a life well-lived. Of roses smelled, passions pursued and chances taken. We get it, but that is not today's pre-brunch assignment. Nope, we are talking about cash money. The market rate for your personal data.

Starbucks, the National Security Agency, American Express, heck, even Petsmart all have gigabites of data about you. What you buy, when you buy it, what you spend, where you go, with whom you communicate and a bunch of other stuff you do mindlessly without guile or strategem is all being collected, collated, evaluated, interpreted and statistically manipulated in hopes that it will reveal some secret indication about your loyalty to country, company and paper towel brand. So, as the old joke goes about showing an overly optimistic child a room full of manure in hope of dampening his spirit, there must be a pony in there somewhere, right?

Uhh, maybe. In aggregate. Very, very big aggregates. Turns out that the demand for information about the average consumer has flooded the business intelligence market with information...about average consumers. All of which has dampened the value of said info. To the point where data about you, Mr or Mrs Degreed, Vetted, Employed, Totally Successful Pillar of the Community and Inspiration to The Younger Generation might fetch 5 cents on the open market. On a good day. We've included a link to a Financial Times calculator that will help you assess your very own value.

All of which suggests that terabytes of data have their uses but your contribution to same isnt going to be the asset base for a long and happy retirement. Have a nice day anyway - and do buy some paper towels. JL

Emily Steel reports in the Financial Times:

Corporate competition to accumulate information about consumers is intensifying even as concerns about government surveillance grow, pushing down the market price for intimate personal details to fractions of a cent.

Over recent years, the surveillance of consumers has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry conducted by largely unregulated companies that obtain information by scouring web searches, social networks, purchase histories and public records, among other sources. Basic age, gender and location information sells for as little as $0.0005 per person, or $0.50 per thousand people, according to price details seen by the Financial Times. Information about people believed to be “influential” within their social networks sells for $0.00075, or $0.75 per thousand people. Slightly more valuable are income details and shopping histories, which both sell for $0.001.
According to industry sources, most people’s profile information sells for less than a dollar in total. “You’re not worth much,” said Dave Morgan, founder of one of the first companies to use web surfing data to target online ads.
As basic information on consumers becomes ubiquitous, data brokers are tracking down even more details. For $0.26 per person, LeadsPlease.com sells the names and mailing addresses of people suffering from ailments such as cancer, diabetes and clinical depression. The information includes specific medications including cancer treatment drug Methotrexate and Paxil, the antidepressant, according to price details viewed by the FT.
LeadsPlease offers a discount for bulk buyers. The price of a record drops to $0.14 if a buyer purchases 50,001 to 100,000 names.
Another company, ALC Data, sells a list of consumers with specific ailments sorted by credit score. “In the current economy, targeting prospects who have good credit, bad credit or a lack of credit can dramatically affect results,” the company states in its marketing materials.
Buyers of ALC’s “MH2 Credit Ailment Masterfile” in the past 12 months include Blue Cross Blue Shield, the insurance group, mobile operator Sprint Nextel and TXU Energy, the Texas energy utility, according to usage details on ALC’s website.
ALC also tracks more than 80 per cent of all US births and competes fiercely against other data brokers in the baby sector. The company recently unveiled a new “Newborn Network” database containing information about prenatal and postnatal mothers, as well as their aunts, grandmothers, close friends and neighbours. “It is a saturated market,” says Lori Magill-Cook, an executive vice-president at ALC.
The US Federal Trade Commission and a congressional committee are investigating the data broker industry to understand what these companies know and how the information is used. Few laws exist in the US that protect the privacy of an individual’s data.
The industry operates under self-regulatory guidelines, which bar the collection of information about children, specific health and financial data. Under the guidelines, the tracking and selling of information derived from medical records and prescriptions are allowed if patients’ names and other identifying data have been deleted. LeadsPlease and ALC state that the patient-specific ailment information they sell is not sourced from such records, but has instead been revealed by the patients themselves. Calculator to determine how much your personal data are worth: 
influence data value