Privacy Specialist Responds to John Oliver's "Data Brokers" Segment! 

I'm ashamed to admit that I spent a few years in marketing and would routinely have to pull lists from data brokers for targeted marketing purposes. This was back in about 2005 and even then I could tell you every woman that was planning to get married who had an income of $50,000 in a certain zip code. I would call up our data brokers and ask them for any metrics that our clients wanted and we could get an Excel spreadsheet within a day.

I'm glad that you explain the concepts in more detail, I'm sure this John Oliver segment will definitely open some peoples eyes, hopefully people will find this video and learn more. :D

Any publicity around privacy is good publicity, and this is GREAT publicity.

In the face of overwhelming "why should I care" attitudes toward this matter and the growing power of the profiteers, I am really happy this is being talked about. Great stuff.

8:56 De-anonymizing data is just like fingerprinting a browser; you only need to put together a few "anonymous" data-points to uniquely identify a person or a browser.

Edward Snowden is a national hero. The fact that he's exiled to avoid Prison is the crime.

My favorite is how Facebook claims they don't listen to you. I don't own a cat or have any reason for Facebook to give me ads about cat products. One day after talking about Facebook potentially listening to people through their phone app, I started talking about cat toys. Facebook started showing me ads for cat toys for a few days, something it never did before or since.

The sad thing is when you get - after explaining things - a response along the following line: "Well, I've got nothing to hide, has nothing to do with me" which completely ignores that they've opened themselves up to manilpulation. It's not about "having to hide something" - it's all about not providing professional manipulators cracks to sink their crowbars into.

I work in a field similar to this man and he's 100% spot on. It's pretty sad that this technology is completely unregulated and legislated by, frankly, boomers in their 60s and 70s who haven't the absolute faintest clue as to it's implications. We're now at a point where if you've ever gone online without some form of identity protection you've given massive amounts of personal data and analytics over to whatever companies you decided to visit while browsing and countless others. All so Amazon can target you more effectively for the sale of a waffle maker. It's fucking sad.

I definitely welcome something like this. It's about time the public get their realization about the need for privacy.

I've always loved Oliver's segments on issues and this one was no different. But I was happy to see another expert such as yourself break it down and confirm some of his points. Nice job; thanks for making this complicated issue a little easier to understand and offer some solutions.

I've known about this for years and people thought I was nanners. Its good to see this getting some public attention it deserves. Where I have struggled with is getting solutions made and passed.

I believe John Oliver was going for possibility of the negative aspects of having total anonymity and lack of trackability especially businesses and those who are interested in doing nefarious deeds which can create a huge problem in the correct hands. But overall agreed that people should be allowed to have the default as privacy but allowed to not if they desire not to be private. First time viewer and I appreciate your candor.

I was a skip chaser for chase Manhattan back in the day for several years and there almost nothing that cannot be found out about YOU! This was 20 yrs ago in sure its gotten soooo much easier to find info on people. The REALLY scarey thing to me is that law enforcement really no longer needs a warrant, they can just buy the data!

Haha I watched that and couldn't wait for your response. Awesome! Glad you liked it too and hopefully it'll help them make laws to care about privacy

They even use 1 pixel remote images to track you. It's sick.

I called CVS last night to reorder my continuous blood glucose monitor. (Type 1 Diabetic) I do not search Diabetes info… I don’t need to! This morning I got a commercial on YT for a CGM of a different brand! HOW IS THAT NOT A HIPPA VIOLATION?!? 😡😡😡 I hate capitalism with EVERY fiber of my being.

My personal favorite is when companies claim they anonymize your phone number by hashing it (messenger and VoIP apps are especially guilty of that), as if there are no rainbow tables or GPUs that can 'deanonymize' it in less than a second.

You shouldn't be surprised John Oliver didn't go into details about how to protect privacy beyond the little bit on his show, nor fault him for it. For most people, that's already more than they can do without help. John needed to get his point across and make people sit up and take at least the bare minimum steps towards privacy protection: non-Chrome browsers and tools like ghostery. That's already a huge deal for a lot of people who aren't willing to go out of their way and change their habits. My mom is a perfect example: she'll nod along when watching show episodes like this, but then refuse to use the non-Chrome browser I put on her phone because she's not used to it, and she also can't be bothered to remember to use tools like a VPN because "they slows down the internet connection". As long as getting your privacy back is "too difficult, too complicated" to bother with, there's not a lot that can be done to get the average person on board.

I watched the John Oliver segment before seeing this. RU-vid actually recommended your video because I watched the John Oliver segment. Love this content.

Shared both Last Week Tonight with John Oliver's video, and your response to the people in my social network. Although I have shared more stuff from ya'll and others... but it is a hard battle to fight to get people to actually take privacy seriously. Let's hope LWTWJO will get more people to take it seriously, anywhere on the planet... the EU might have better privacy protection than say the US, but there too there is still plenty to be done.

I love when experts in their field, analyze what John Oliver and his team at Last Week Tonight do. It always give them credence, it should silence the haters, that are so stuck in their ways, they can't seem to be able to learn or want to learn. But as you clearly explain, we all should trust the experts more, let them fight our battles, because of mere mortals can't figure this vast field of privacy online out ourself, not unless we want to become an expert as well...

You got a new subscriber today. I went from being part of the problem to part of the solution and I've become an advocate to my friends and family on how to secure their identities. I respect what you're doing brother keep up the good fight.

Nice job of expanding on John’s take on privacy (or lack of) on the web.

Thank you so much for this awesome response video, and in general all the hard work by Techlore to help people improve their privacy and security game =D

You know how to identify someone who knows what they are talking about? They make it easy for ANYONE to understand. You are VERY good at these explanations. New subscriber!

The hardest part of going off grid is if you're still planning on being an active member in society and you aren't equipped with the know-how and resources to basically be your own boss. Most if virtually all jobs don't just expect you to be plugged in through the hiring process, many require you to now use social media and particular software and browsers both at your job and sometimes request you use your pages to advertise and things as well. So even if you disconnect personally and still manage to get hired at a decent job...you still end up being subjected to invasion of privacy without your consent or ability to avoid it, while having your job, other companies, the government...monitoring you in everything you do at work. I agree with John Oliver completely. I don't think switching your money to an off grid bank is a smart move...it actually could be potentially disastrous if shut down, outlawed, or fallen into the wrong hands... it's far better to push for regulations that defend our rights and privacy using these outlets day to day as we all do.

As soon as I get my information off of one people finding websites. My info pops up on a brand new site, it's like whack a mole...I'm so glad I found this video....

Surprisingly enough, they taught us about this in elementary school. Internet safety was starting to become more prevalent, and our teacher pulled out the projector, asked if someone would be willing to volunteer, and he typed the student's name in. We were nine years old, and he showed us that the student's phone number, IP, and home address info could be bought on a website for ten dollars. Thinking back on it now, it makes me sick.

Thank you for advocating to people about their privacy! I'm rarely one of the "there oughta be a law" types but I feel like this industry needs to be regulated or eliminated.

Awesome video! I caught the John Oliver bit when it aired, but I appreciate the breakdown here. You got yourself a new subscriber. So far, I have been apathetic about this stuff, even though I can clearly see the danger. I look forward to becoming more proactive about this important issue.

And yeah there's tons more to do but I think the goal was more about getting lawmakers to get more into it

According to my Brave browser, it has blocked 1.3 MILLION trackers and adds in about 2 years.

Subscribed! Read "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden and then watched Jon Oliver's video, I'm glad RU-vid recommended this video and I recognize the irony of that in this context. Lol

Techlore and John Oliver. Among two of favourite niches coming together is a dream come true.

Ironically, the original video isn't allowed through the RU-vid app in UK. I had to copy the link into the TOR browser to watch it lol.

Thank You, glad to be back.

John Oliver's segment on data browsers was fantastic. I believe that the Monero quip was a joke or that John and his staff don't understand the technical aspects of crypto currencies. A few years ago he did an interview with Edward Snowden and he asked very interesting questions to Ed that no one at the time was asking. Since John is a comedian, he asked Snowden to describe all the programs he revealed that intelligence agencies were using through a nude picture. The general population don't understand the technical side of how their privacy is being stolen, sold, and distributed on a daily basis, myself included. Anecdotes are a great way to get the message across to everyone, which will make people gravitate more to the privacy world or advocate strongly for it.

One of my favorite fiction books on this: Feed by M.T. Anderson. "The novel focuses on issues such as corporate power, consumerism, information technology, data mining, and environmental decay, with a sometimes sardonic, sometimes somber tone."

Awesome video. Randomly showed up in recommendations. Excited to see other videos from you! 😊

Thank You For Sharing This, Sir. I haven't watched mainstream television in 10, maybe even 15 years at this point. From that perspective, I'm truly surprised to hear anyone on TV talking about these things. John Oliver. I may look into him~! What a lovely talk!

Say what you will about John Oliver, he’s not afraid to take direct action. I like that he ends all of these videos with “what can we do”, and I especially like that, when he can, he takes some big swings in those segments.

John always delivers on stories that need an ear. Proper breakdown. 🤙

Thanks for the clear explanation. Excellent delivery, very understandable.

WoW, I’m enlightened! Thanks for explaining All of this!

I thought of this channel when I saw the John Oliver segment. Cool to see you make a video.

What John Oliver doesn't mention is that there is something called AD BLOCK and AD BLOCKER which literally blocks all of these things. I have not seen ads on my computer in years because of this. It even works on RU-vid which I'm sure drives RU-vid crazy.

In germany there are no readily available tools to search for people. so i used a US one to search for someone i know. during the search i was asked specific yes-or-no questions which implied they already knew a lot about that person. before i could see the report, i was asked to enter my name and email... and below there was a disclaimer that my privacy is important to them. great sense of humor :-D

Thanks for sharing your professional commentary. Those people whose eyes would glaze over talking about internet privacy, but this was an eye-opener. Thank you.

Honestly, the whole concept of "Internet Privacy" is a complete joke. They know what you *TELL THEM*. They don't know if it's the truth. Want the algorithm to think you're fat? Start doing web searches for 'Big and Tall'. You'll see ads featuring huge guys in RU-vid feed in no time. Every time you walk into a brick and mortar store, you're recorded on closed-circuit TV, and your shopping behavior is collected, monitored, and analyzed, by the people who consult on how best to lay out the floorplan of the store. And what online user monitoring does is the *exact same thing*. How can you be more outraged by someone using a cookie to track your visits to Amazon to buy toilet paper than literally having your photograph taken and distributed every single time you walk into a Macy's? I wouldn't mind so much if this privacy hysteria wasn't being deliberately hyped and exploited by "privacy grifters", like alternate browsers, search engines, VPNs, etc., all of whom offer no real protection from user surveillance, because, this just in: they still know what you tell them. It's not possible for them to give you the data you ask for, without you asking for it, and that's all they're really tracking: What you ask for. If you want real privacy, here's a pro-tip, for those of you who didn't hear it by the time you entered elementary school: Don't tell people. Don't go to Amazon or Facebook or Google and expect them to keep your secrets for you. And for everything else, just relax! Your relationship with Amazon is like your relationship with BevMo: the keep track of what you buy.

Well fuck, now the government knows I am concerned about privacy. Thanks Techlore!

I don't really watch much John Oliver anymore I don't like him as much as I used to back in 2014 but I do appreciate yourself taking what he said in his segment and trying to expand upon it to make it more popular and more digestible to be understood

Never once mentioned online about a sandwich shop in the area that i went to one day.. never saw ads for it, then one day i mentioned it to a friend of mine in FB messenger.. ever since then i'm ALWAYS seeing ads for that specific shop EVERY SINGLE DAY. Never visited their website, I never googled it, nothing. But yeah they absolutely monitor your chat. Oh.. and I've never gone there again since. The only thing the target ads did was make them lose a customer.

"It's disturbing how easily a member of the press can purchase information from the men in your precinct." - John Doe, Se7en

i really love your channel. last month i got my friend to use signal with me (she kindly used it bc i asked her) and imm loving it. slowly, i want to get more people i know on it, and this summer i’m gonna stop using chrome. 💀 your channel, along with the hated one have been eye-opening for me and i can’t thank you enough! you’re doing important work, especially in the direction the world is going right now.

Thanks for making this, just watched Oliver's video a couple days ago. A few months ago I curiously looked myself up and was shocked, but not surprised at the fact that theyre over 100 websites with my info, along with relatives and employers readily available to anyone with an internet connection. I'd like to hear your opinion on companies like optery. Thanks!

As someone who runs a lot of tabletop games the targeted adds I get for looking up information is fucking wild.

People need privacy. Companies need constant surviellance. Government members need constant surveillance.

Uh 10th? The book for surveillance capitalism looks interesting, thanks for the recommendation!

I found this through the recommended videos. Was half thinking it was going to be clickbaity but saw your EFF hat and decided I'd stick around and find out. You made some really good points, some of which are unfortunately even more relevant now than when you made this (like with the period tracker apps now that Roe V Wade is up in the air)

And now that I watched your full video, THANK YOU.

Awesome! Thank you!!

Thanks for elaborating for clearly on the points the John Oliver brought up in this episode.

I'm down with my phone listening and google searches sending suggestions, but I swear to God, last week I had a larger than usual number of guitars and banjos in my shop, and I thought about wall hangers. I did NOT vocalize this thought. Next day, in the Facebook ad feed, there they are. Have I been chipped!?

Great discussion, and thank you! As long as we citizens allow corporations and governments to keep "legal" Secrets, data will continue to be profitable, and privacy will remain a luxury. We need a world without Secrets and Lies

- My RU-vid search history is always in an order that I had not last left it. I saved a game to my RU-vid channel. When I checked later, my RU-vid history have been researched and I can see that other saved videos had been viewed… I’m like, how and who?!!

I wish browser makers would do more to prevent fingerprinting. I run ublock origin, DuckDuckGo PE, Privacy Badger and CanvasBlocker and *still* have a unique fingerprint :/

Thank you very much!

Watched the Jon Oliver episode and with eexperience from previous employment as a test it took me less than two hours to find someone who had intentionally disappeared with no internet history in the last twenty years just through their next of kin. This cost me $0 with no need to input CC information/no data broker required. Privacy in today's age is nearly impossible to achieve and maintain. I don't like that this is so easy but it's the new normal. An intelligent person can find anyone alive on this earth 🌎 with minimal effort if they know how. Try to reject all third party cookies but everyone leaves a trace sometime/somewhere and as the presenter states a single trace will allow anyone to track you if they want.

I work in the marketing industry, and have seen the definition of de-identified data has changed over the years. Data like that used to be summarzied data, typically at zip level. Today, it's sold at individual levels, largely due to an utter lack of government regulation. I've also worked in credit, and as regulated as that is, it still needs work to bring its privacy regulations into the modern era.

2:49 i think those people with the basic 'why should i care argument' should see not just the targeted ads but see how the price they are charged for a product or service can depend on what data has been gleaned about you before you're offered the product. amazon is a good place to start...different people can pay very different prices for the same product. this will make them care more.

It's awesome that someone with a great reach talked about privacy, and I'm glad he outlined the most important concerns. It's important that you corrected him on the cookies stuff, not only for the sake of being up to date, but also because when one takes his first steps towards protecting his privacy, one tends to become overconfident. Happened to me. So it's good to emphasize that it's a little more complex. On his opinion on Monero, sadly it probably reflects what most people think. People often adopt awful ideas that go against freedom and it's hard to fight that. I believe that while people know that surveillance on private lives is wrong, most people wont accept that some of their own beliefs are what enable said surveillance. Don't want to alienate people with politics, but that's also how I believe that some of the authoritarian governments in South America came to be. Anyway, keep up the great work, cheers! Edit: fixed a typo and consistency in a sentence.

That John Oliver take opened my eyes. I'm not private yet but I'm definitely more aware

Danke!

Law & Order did an episode about this around 20 years ago called "Access Nation".

Great video. Thought it was going to be a bit of fearmongering on John Oliver's video. But glad it was easy for people to understand

Ad companies trying to comprehend med students: Sooo,,, you’re a pregnant, >70 year old male with HPV-3, Herpes-1, AIDS and has had 2 heart attacks

I was waiting for your response to John Oliver :)

Good to know. I've kept an interest as privacy and tracking has become common and knowing more has become a technical requirement. Sadly this has even included knowing how to help a user circumvent their own security on their phone to enable authorization for a repair. (I worked in a phone repair position and a customer needed to unlock the phone before a screen replacement. Further confirmation that they owned the phone was already included in the process to approving the replacement.) Account security is a major concern, and privacy for account action is always keeping pace.

Very interesting and 'thank you' for the information.

Privacy hasn't existed since about the 70's. Does anyone remember those "customer loyalty cards" of the 80s? Do you really think the only data they collected was the total cost of your purchases? Once the ability to store massive amounts of data (such as credit card purchases) became popular it also became possible to aggregate it. Massive amounts of aggregated data is a product. This began in the 90s. The internet did nothing to decrease the amount of data collected - it just made it far less expensive to do so.

Good Stuff. Sharing.

Great video. Thanks

I read Google has an average of 250 data points on all Americans.

I generally don't experience targeted advertising. Particularly because I refuse to give any media platforms permission to personalize any advertising they send my way. I also always opt out of any data collection for advertising purposes.

Glad I clicked on your video I love the way you dissected the video and informative

So, sadly your channel came into my feed on YT because of tracking. But because of THAT particular tracking I found your channel so YEA?! It is conflicting when you look at it that way. Still I am glad I found your channel so I can start learning more. I love John and his main story info but yeah, he could have given more info. Further steps, by mentioning certain type channels, like your type, on how to go a step or more on better ways to protect ones own privacy. Came for the title... stayed for the content.

I have _never_ seen a single ad that seemed accurately targeted at me... 😑

Searched myself glad to say next to nothing was found

great stuff

I've gone on that site. It's really cool. Excellent job!

Finch from Person of Interest: "What easier way to get information than to have people volunteer it."

How you have a channel amazes me. Well done

Great breakdown video! 👍

I looked myself up on one of those reverse people lookup websites, and I did not find myself on there, which means I am virtually untraceable.

And I really believed it and taught myself as much as I could and used it.

'People don't really care about until it impacts them.' - Words you should all understand and live by.

Thanks!

Thank you!!!

Well in the Monero thing, the commercial itself spoke about circumventing law and government. I think that is where he took it another way. Had they not mentioned this point, I think it would have been fine, but he is right, they are moving towards a pretty specific conclusion and it seems pretty illegal.