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Acxiom Tries To Match Offline And Online Data To Better Target Spam To You

from the just-what-everyone-wants dept

Mon, Dec 10th 2007 8:56am — Mike Masnick

Acxiom, the big provider of "marketing data" for direct marketing purposes -- who has a history of making it difficult to opt-out, while making it easy to have its databases hacked -- is apparently making a big push to link its offline profile data to your online activities as well. The company insists that it's being careful concerning private info, but this all sounds quite a bit like what DoubleClick tried to do with its purchase of data firm Abacus -- which got all sorts of negative publicity, leading the firm to shelve plans to combine the two databases. Acxiom claims that the company learned from what happened with DoubleClick and Abacus, but somehow it seems unlikely that many people will feel comfortable with such promises.

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Filed Under: direct marketing, offline, online
Companies: acxiom

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alternatives(), 10 Dec 2007 @ 9:18am

Entries in access
Simple enough, add entries in your sendmail to block 'em.
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Leroy, 10 Dec 2007 @ 10:27am

blocking ads
What we need for firefox is the ability to block entire domains. I want to be able to tell my browser to route anything from doubleclick.com right to the trash. Let their servers think it is being displayed, but route it directly to the trash. Then I can add other domains of companies that disrespect our privacy the same way. End of problem.

"L"
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2007 @ 10:51am

Echelon, anybody? :v
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Rich Kulawiec, 10 Dec 2007 @ 11:43am

Re: blocking ads (and Acxiom)
Leroy, my recommendation would be to install the "adblock plus" plugin for Firefox, which I believe would meet your needs.
Acxiom are known spammers, so expecting them to respect anyone's privacy is silly...of course they won't, they're in the privacy-invasion business.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2007 @ 1:43pm

As Mr. Kulawiec says, have a look at Firefox extensions. Adblock Plus is just one of the things you can use to get rid of those nasty intrusive ads.
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"leroy", 10 Dec 2007 @ 9:17pm

adblock+
yes, I use adblock plus, but have to click on each frame to make it go away. But if I could have a list of domains to totally block, it would make each individual click unneeded. Color me lazy if you like, but I can predict that for the rest of my life there is nothing I am going to want to see, where that url contains the phrase "doubleclick.com" anywhere within that line. That's the power I want firefox to have.
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