Identity Resolution

There are all sorts of things that can be used to identify us online and in the real world, beyond our names, addresses, and phone numbers. But data brokers are desperate to tie all of these unique pieces of information together, building a valuable marketing dossier. It’s become a massive industry – being able to map one supposedly anonymous or pseudonymous piece of data to the a person’s full identity. Today we’ll delve deeply into this shady business with Iesha White and Zach Edwards.

Interview Notes

• Victory Medium (Zach): https://victorymedium.com/
• Check My Ads (Iesha): https://checkmyads.org/
• TLS fingerprinting: https://fingerprint.com/blog/what-is-tls-fingerprinting-transport-layer-security/
• Disable Mobile Ad ID (MAID): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-android-and-why-you-should-do-it-now
• US v Google: https://www.usvgoogleads.com/
• IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF): https://iabeurope.eu/iab-europe-transparency-consent-framework-policies/
• DROP portal: https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/
• Remove online data: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/dragon-hacks-opt-out/
• Apple’s Hide My Email: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105078

Further Info

• My book: https://fdsd.me/book
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• Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch

Table of Contents

• 0:00:20: Intro
• 0:02:22: Learning the lingo
• 0:03:34: What identifiers are used to track us online?
• 0:12:00: How else are we being tracked?
• 0:23:20: How are we tracked in the physical world?
• 0:31:54: How do brick and mortar stores track us?
• 0:37:46: What if the data is wrong?
• 0:43:58: What if I’m okay with targetted ads?
• 0:49:14: How does my data overlap your data?
• 0:54:01: Can’t this tracking also be used to stop fraud?
• 0:58:08: Why can’t we just use contextual ads?
• 1:05:22: What can we do about this?
• 1:13:00: What does NOT work to stop tracking?
• 1:14:10: What’s next for you two?
• 1:17:43: Wrap-up
• 1:21:05: Patron podcast preview
• 1:21:56: Looking ahead