Everyday tools transformed into cookies. Dozens of the most used applications in France, such as Le Bon Coin, Vinted or Grindr, share the location of their users within an opaque advertising market without the latter being fully informed. A situation that has long been denounced by experts and defenders of online privacy and which has been confirmed and illustrated by the examination, The World and several partner media, an exclusive database, from one of these personal data brokers who specialize in the sale and exchange of personal information for advertising purposes.
This is a sample sent for sales presentation purposes by one of these brokers, Datastream Group. This Florida-based company offers its clients data intended to better target advertising campaigns. For several months, we combed through his file with eight other media outlets as part of this investigation: netzpolitik.org et Bayerischer Rundfunk (Allemagne), Wired (United States), SRF and RTS (Switzerland), NRK Beta (Norway), BNR Nieuwsradio (Netherlands) as well as Today’s News (Suede).
Another set of data, leaked in early January, also highlighted the sensitivity of these super files. Hackers have put tens of millions of Internet users’ contact details online, presenting them as a fragment of the data in the possession of the company Gravy Analytics. The latter’s parent company, the Norwegian group Unacast, acknowledged the existence of this hack on Friday January 10.
Millions of people tracked
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