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Data Brokers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight

10M subscribers • 5 videos on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by John Oliver
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

9.7M views4 years ago5 recommendations

SecurityPrivacy and surveillance

John Oliver explains how data brokers collect, profile, and sell personal information, and demonstrates the privacy risks by targeting politicians.

John Oliver discusses how much data brokers know about us, what they’re doing with our personal information, and one….unusual way to change privacy laws. Connect with Last Week Tonight online... Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/lastweektonight Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would: www.facebook.com/lastweektonight Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news: www.twitter.com/lastweektonight Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once: www.hbo.com/lastweektonight

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an accessible and eye-opening overview of the unregulated data broker industry and its massive privacy implications.

praveenhmon Hacker News • Recommends

On “You can now ask Google to remove your phone number, email or address from search”

Removing from google doesn't go far enough, the big culprit is the data broker. Displaying your age, is the biggest worry, among your friends circle. John oliver recently made a late night show on data brokers, threatening the congress members, must watch for anyone. link to this video
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roneooon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Why do we allow Equifax, Transunion, and Experian to exist?”

To get an overview of these (toxic IMHO) companies, I strongly recommend this episode of Last Week Tonight: link to this video
View on Hacker News

thenaturaliston Hacker News • Recommends

On “European Commission prefers breaking privacy to protecting kids”

Care to share some details? When it comes to privacy invasion the EU has been a champion in curbing massively intrusive corporate practices for years now. Some of it is awful yes, but other high visibility projects have been amazing. I'm glad to be European when I look at the insanity that is the American tracking and personal data brokers industry. I recommend a recent John Oliver on this: link to this video
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mixmastamykon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: How to deal with children's online habits?”

You may not be aware of the full extent of the problem. It's not just the "time wasting" of the old days, just ~15 years ago. Try these documentaries: - "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix - "The United States of Secrets" on PBS. - John Oliver on Data Brokers, link to this video There are others I can't remember off the top of my head. You may feel differently when you find out about companies profiting off the current (as in right now) whereabouts of your child.
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mixmastamykon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google”

link to this video John Oliver is informative here, though some of his jokes fall flat on this one. It's just not a funny subject I suppose.
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ethbr1on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Auto Makers Are Selling Data on Your Driving Habits to Your Insurer”

John Oliver may be relevant to your interests: link to this video >> "I am sorry to disappoint you; we are not going to do that." >> "Why would we? When we have already done it."
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k4ch0won Hacker News • Mentions

On “Meta earnings presentation Q1 2022 [pdf]”

Data collection, anti-trust and privacy policies. Right now it is the wild west and consumers have no idea what is being collected and how they are being profiled for ads. link to this video
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truxson Hacker News • Mentions

On “Data broker is selling location data of people who visit abortion clinics”

John Oliver actually bought information from data broker to see if they could identify members of congress link to this video
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nowherebeenon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Former Facebook, WhatsApp employees lead new push to fix social media”

It didn't get worse because you can't see it. The value of Whatsapp is in the metadata. Not the UI/ UX. A bank used to keep your personal financial information as private. Now post-acquisition, the bank starts selling your personal financial information to insurance companies. To you, as an account holder, you don't know the difference because its all hidden away from you. Maybe you don't care because the bank hasn't increased your fees, but other people you don't know can now buy your data and target you. Here's how data brokers work: link to this video
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asix66on Hacker News • Mentions

On “U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers”

What ever happend from John Oliver's privacy exposé last year? 0 Seems he was going to submit a docket of info collected on congress people which was supposed to nudge actions towards regulating data broker collections and online privacy. 0 link to this video
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