EdT
macrumors 68020
Because many years ago I worked with direct mail (junk mail) marketing firms. The amount of information about a person that can be determined by cross checking data was astonishing back then. There isn’t one database there are thousands, probably millions by now. Some are public information and will have your name, address, marital status freely available. Others are company based and you have to buy access. From those you can get -frequently- income, job history, education, where you have lived and when.How did you pretzel jump from companies listening to snippets to improve voice recognition software to a what if paranoid scenario that you wrote? Amazing if you, and others, really believe that’s the future.
For me that was 30 years ago. My wife is still in that business. The amount of data collected and collated on Americans is staggering. And small details can lead to new discoveries by businesses. Maybe all it means is you get more targeted ads. Maybe it means you get put on a suckers list and are hit by questionable charities and causes. Those could and did happen 30 years ago. With people not caring about their own privacy it happens more now.