LC-13 · Privacy
Selling your dossier
A file you never opened
In ordinary words
Data brokers assemble addresses, purchases, inferred health interests, and location trails, then sell them. No relationship with you is required.
Why people call it a crime
People assume a company needs permission to sell a file about them. In most of the United States it does not.
A scene, not a hypothetical statute
You search for a medical symptom. An ad network logs it. A broker sells a segment called “likely diabetes interest” to insurers’ marketing vendors. You never signed that broker’s form.
In legal terms
There is no general federal privacy statute. The FTC polices unfair or deceptive acts under 15 U.S.C. § 45. Sectoral laws cover some data: FCRA for credit reports used in eligibility decisions, HIPAA for covered health entities, GLBA for financial institutions, COPPA for children under 13. State laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act add access and deletion rights but still allow many sales if the consumer does not opt out. Location-data sales have drawn FTC enforcement when claims or sensitive inferences were deceptive.
U.S. privacy law is a patchwork. Information that is not in a protected category can be bought and sold as a commodity.
15 U.S.C. § 45; 15 U.S.C. § 1681 (FCRA); Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.
Where it stops being legal
Using broker data as a consumer report without FCRA compliance, selling data after promising not to, or knowingly collecting children’s data without COPPA consent is unlawful. A few states now require broker registration.