{"id":26434,"date":"2024-03-12T07:09:48","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T14:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=26434"},"modified":"2024-03-12T07:09:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T14:09:50","slug":"global-identity-system-tracks-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/global-identity-system-tracks-you\/","title":{"rendered":"This Global Identity System Tracks Everything You Do Online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s nearly seven years since we first wrote about the complex web of surveillance capitalism<\/a>, a massive machine which tracks everything you do and everywhere you go online. That article drew on an important report from Cracked Labs, written by Wolfie Christl, who had meticulously pieced together the jigsaw puzzle of players that keep this vast surveillance machine humming for profit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, practically everyone online is aware at least vaguely that they are being watched, but exactly how that is being done still remains rather mysterious \u2013 not least because the main players like it that way. That makes a new report from Cracked Labs extremely valuable, because it dives deep into the ways in which one of the key players in the surveillance advertising ecosystem gathers and exploits your personal data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 61-page report<\/a> concerns the company LiveRamp. Although unknown outside advertising circles, it claims to maintain \u201cthe largest and most accurate people-based identity graph on the market.\u201d \u201cIdentity graph\u201d is a fancy way of saying the complex and vital web of connections between key aspects of people\u2019s lives. According to the Cracked Labs report, LiveRamp sells data on 700 million consumers globally from 150 data providers through its data marketplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of these data brokers, but what makes LiveRamp special is how it brings together personal data obtained from multiple sources. It has created a global identity system that assigns every person one or more proprietary identifiers, which are linked to key personal attributes such as names, postal addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, as well as digital IDs that refer to browsers, smartphones, and other devices. In effect, LiveRamp has created what is probably the world\u2019s most complete shadow identity system, with detailed profiles for a large proportion of the world\u2019s online users:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many businesses in the digital marketing industry utilize LiveRamp\u2019s identity surveillance technology to recognize, track, follow, profile and target people across the digital world and trade profile information about them. The company also promotes its identity graph systems as a solution to sell behavioral advertising \u201cwithout third-party cookies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are two main parts to LiveRamp\u2019s system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n