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Information about Internet users, available from $1 for 2,000 people

Internet user dataCompetition between companies collecting information about consumers in the online environment is intensifying and the price the data are sold for use in marketing strategies fell to $0.0005 for data on age, sex and location of a person.

In recent years, consumer data collection has developed into a billion dollar industry where the major players get information by analyzing online searches, activity on social networks, shopping and public data. Their work is largely unregulated while people are increasingly concerned about the strict supervision by the governments.

Files include thousands of personal details, including health problems, financial reliability and even data about pregnant women. Companies use algorithms to determine based on the data collected how to anticipate and influence consumer behavior.

Simple information on age, sex and location are sold for $0.0005 per person, or $0.5 per 1,000 people, according to price offers obtained by the Financial Times. Information about persons considered influential in social networks have a higher price of $0.00075, or $0.75 per 1,000 such individuals. Details of income and purchase history are slightly more valuable, priced at $0.0001 per person.

According to industry sources, the full file of a person sells for less than a dollar. You don’t have much value, said Dave Morgan, founder of one of the first companies that use Internet traffic data to transmit subsequent advertisements depending on customer profile.

As basic information about consumers is becoming more readily available, data brokers follow even more details. For $0.26 per person, LeadsPlease.com sells names and email addresses of people with conditions such as cancer, diabetes and depression. The information includes details about their medication.

LeadsPlease offer discounts to those who buy in large quantities. A file price drops to $0.14 per person if a company buys data for 50,001-100,000 people.

Another company, ALC Data, sells a list of people suffering from certain diseases aand classified according to creditworthiness. The buyers’ list of data provided by ALC buyers includes insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, telecom company Sprint Nextel and energy company TXU Energy. ALC seeks also data on 80% of U.S. births.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission and a congressional committee are investigating the activity of data brokers to determine how much information they have and how they use it. In the U.S. there are few laws to protect a person’s data privacy.

Data collection industry operates under a set of principles created by companies that prohibit the collection of information about children, and details about health and financial situation. According to them, the sale of information derived from medical records and prescriptions is allowed as long as the identification data have been deleted.

LeadsPlease.com and ALC Data indicated that some information on the health of the patients were even provided by them.

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