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Startup Stealth Data Working To Uncover the Identities of Website Users (bizjournals.com) 111

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Data mining startup Stealth Data is working to help websites uncover the "individual names, phone numbers, emails and physical addresses" of the users who visit websites. This information "can include a website visitor's job title, employer, annual income, age, and personal and professional social media profiles" so that businesses can use this data for marketing purposes.

Stealth Data's third co-founder Chad Sneed experienced marketing frustrations firsthand through his family's dealership, Dennis Sneed Ford in Gower, Missouri. Sneed, who's a vice president and partner, said the dealership spends a significant amount on marketing, from search engines to third-party advertising. A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale. Sneed wanted to unlock that information and started talking to the dealership's outside marketing firm, Phame Influence, to see if it was possible. Puckett, who co-founded Phame with Paris, also is a trial lawyer.

"My lawyer hat instantly says no," Puckett said.

But after digging further, he discovered it's legal and that using the information for cold calling and emailing is fair game.

Co-founder Chad Sneed noted that he doesn't see any privacy issues.


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Startup Stealth Data Working To Uncover the Identities of Website Users More

Startup Stealth Data Working To Uncover the Identities of Website Users

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  • Just what we need... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary&yahoo,com> on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:24PM (#61455540) Journal

    More fucky spam calls about cars. Yay. I love this late-stage capitalist internet, don't you?

    • Re:Just what we need... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @05:22PM (#61455750)

      More fucky spam calls about cars. Yay. I love this late-stage capitalist internet, don't you?

      Poor Chad.

      If only there was a way to have a web site ask a user "is it okay if we ever contact you or would you prefer us to fuck off forever?", then ask for contact info if the answer isn't "fuck off".

      Imagine a world where they could have "on a scale of one to ten where one is 'it's okay' and ten is 'I'd rather eat my own eyeballs, how willing are you to let us contact you", then ask for contact info for anyone who scored 5 or lower.

      Point is, there are honest ways of collecting contact info... and there are ways of collecting contact info you know it's against the owner's wishes for you to have. Chad had to ask a lawyer, which says it all.

    • More fucky spam calls about cars. Yay. I love this late-stage capitalist internet, don't you?

      Was it better when it wasn't?

      I remember the internet of the 1990s. It was certainly more sparse.

      What is it that was better? And... this is Slashdot.. are you telling me you can't figure out how to prevent the companies from gathering this data?

      • Perhaps a bit more sparse, however there are many more walled gardens now then ever before. At one point in time I could freely access most academic information, historical newspapers etc. All gone to paywalls. FB / Social Media accomplished what AOL tried to do before http existed. They got far but eventually people grew tired of the walls and left. FB doesn't have walls its essentially an entire universe in comparison.

        • Perhaps a bit more sparse, however there are many more walled gardens now then ever before. At one point in time I could freely access most academic information, historical newspapers etc. All gone to paywalls. FB / Social Media accomplished what AOL tried to do before http existed. They got far but eventually people grew tired of the walls and left. FB doesn't have walls its essentially an entire universe in comparison.

          I'd say it was a whole lot more sparse. As you say, it was mostly academia and those things closely related to it. There were a few services, but god.. many were so primitive. I actually remember order plane tickets off easysabre over a terminal connection.

          Personally, I prefer this, with all of it's flaws, over that. But to each their own.

          • We missed the boat! We could have much more easily layered on HTTP over things like CICS instead of the entire let's recreate in MS Office and vbruntime programming. Aside from beauty there isn't much now I couldn't do before. My limits before were almost always hardware. I actually don't recall any show stoppers because of software.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Perhaps a bit more sparse, however there are many more walled gardens now then ever before. At one point in time I could freely access most academic information, historical newspapers etc. All gone to paywalls. FB / Social Media accomplished what AOL tried to do before http existed. They got far but eventually people grew tired of the walls and left. FB doesn't have walls its essentially an entire universe in comparison.

          As I remember it, you could access the databases of many academic libraries, but that wa

          • FTP and file distribution was where the documents were. IRC was where the information was, the Gulf War as experienced on IRC at the time was essentially a live feed. The legality of it all was very grey as the entire alt.binaries nntp got out of hand. There was a lot going on but remember your phone now has more power than my first Spark station.
      • Did you use the internet in the 90s?

      • I remember the times of the dot com bubble. You could type the ticker of even the most obscure little company and get dozens of pages with in depth articles. Now, you get three two-month-old articles behind three separate paywalls. Only $10 here, only $15 here, and only $12 here, I wish I could just get one internet-wide subscription, I would be happy to pay for that if they just divided it amongst themselves based on visitor counts or something like that. But no, to access all content the way you used to b

        • I remember the times of the dot com bubble. You could type the ticker of even the most obscure little company and get dozens of pages with in depth articles. Now, you get three two-month-old articles behind three separate paywalls. Only $10 here, only $15 here, and only $12 here, I wish I could just get one internet-wide subscription, I would be happy to pay for that if they just divided it amongst themselves based on visitor counts or something like that. But no, to access all content the way you used to be able to, you have to manage dozens of subscriptions even though you only read one or two articles from each of them. And even then the information has actually become sparser.

          So yes, it used to be better. At least for everything related to the stock market, but lots of other domains are quite similar.

          Internet wide subscription? Have you ever purchased one paper-wide subscription that gave you the NYT, LA Times, and London Times all together? Why do y'all insist that things on the internet be grouped together? You all seem to have this idea in your head that the internet is a single "thing". It's not. It never was. It is nothing more than a collection of private, public, government, and corporate networks. The only thing they have in common is protocols. Other than that there is nothing, at all, tha

          • But that's the problem. It used to be like that. You used to be able to just google something and read a bunch of articles without any hassle. Today you get a bunch of paywalls and the only way to get the same experience as before, is by subscribing to every single one of them.

            Why couldn't there be a single system? Let's say you pay $30 per month for some kind of internet pass. You visit NYT, get the paywall, and click "use Internet Pass". The next day, you click on a link to an LA Times article and, again,

            • We tried that already. Micropayments. It never took off. It requires every company that produces newspapers or videos or whatever to voluntarily group themselves into some sort of collective.

              Your idea isn't novel. It's been tried. Hell, we're still trying it for streaming audio. Doesn't seem to be working out there either.

              The height of insanity is to keep trying the same shit over and over and over. The first attempt is fine.. Maybe even the second.. But after a while you got to say "this isn't wo

              • If it's a separate fee for every page you visit, it has a discouraging effect on users. But if you pay a fixed fee every month, and that fee gets divided between the sites you visit, that's a different matter.

                VISA is a kind of "collective" too, but websites don't seem to have any trouble supporting that.

                • If it's a separate fee for every page you visit, it has a discouraging effect on users. But if you pay a fixed fee every month, and that fee gets divided between the sites you visit, that's a different matter.

                  VISA is a kind of "collective" too, but websites don't seem to have any trouble supporting that.

                  Well.. c'mon.. VISA has 60 (maybe 70) years attached to it. It sure wasn't nearly as ubiquitous when it was 20.

                  If you think your idea will work, then run with it. Personally I think it's a fool's errand, but I've been wrong plenty of times before. Go start the next Paypal. Maybe you'll end up as a billionaire.

      • What is it that was better?

        Search engines, for one. AltaVista and the late 90's Google were FAR better than what Google is today. SEO has screwed up search results to an ungodly degree, and Google's actual search functionality is not anywhere near as useful as it was 20 years ago.

        • What is it that was better?

          Search engines, for one. AltaVista and the late 90's Google were FAR better than what Google is today. SEO has screwed up search results to an ungodly degree, and Google's actual search functionality is not anywhere near as useful as it was 20 years ago.

          I don't use stock Google much anymore (prefer DuckDuckGo). But one does need to consider that there is...what? Maybe 100x more shit on the web today than 20 years ago?

    • Commies have been saying "late stage capitalism" ever since the rise of many powerful socialist/communist states in the 1940s....and capitalism only seems to have thrived since then. The only remaining socialist/communist states are basically the only places in the world that are poor enough that people are starving.

      • Falling median wages, rising profits by those who don't labor, Housing only affordable by the top 20%, yes, LATE STAGE CAPITALISM
    • Businesses should be free to track you on the internet, or to deny you service based on sexual orientation. In either case, a small icon must appear in the companyâ(TM)s logo, printed materials, signage etc. so those of us that disagree can choose not to do business with them.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:26PM (#61455546)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Fuck you, Chad. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:29PM (#61455566)
      Looks to me like Chad Sneed wants to get doxed.
    • ... and I was looking forward to replacing my aging Ford Ranger this year, but if Ford Moto Company is cool with their dealers doing this, I guess I'll go spend the time and see what other brands have to offer.

    • Re:Fuck you, Chad. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:33PM (#61455586)

      Then you can stop using the entire internet, because I have news for you: Google, Amazon, CloudFlare, Akamai, Microsoft and all the other sumbitches have already de-anonymized you and know everything there is to know about you. It's just that they keep it hush-hush, unlike the Chad fellow who doesn't appear to be the brightest bulb in the box and makes it the explicit purpose of his johnny-come-lately startup.

      Also, you're not buying anything from him - anymore than you're buying anything from Google: you're the product on display, not the customer.

      • Then you can stop using the entire internet, because I have news for you: Google, Amazon, CloudFlare, Akamai, Microsoft and all the other sumbitches have already de-anonymized you and know everything there is to know about you

        None of those companies have ever called me after I visited their website.

      • Google, Amazon, CloudFlare, Akamai, Microsoft and all the other sumbitches have already de-anonymized you and know everything there is to know about you. It's just that they keep it hush-hush

        I have never had a call or email as a result of just visiting a website. And the entities you mention seem to be keeping it so hushed that I really don't mind.

        Google for example must be hushing that they know where I live by pretending that they think I live in Uxbridge UK - because that's where Google Maps always opens for me, and meanwhile (arse and elbow fashion) Google search recommends eye laser treatments in Luton, and I don't need eye laser treatment anyway.

        I live over 200 miles from either U

        • I have never had a call or email as a result of just visiting a website. And the entities you mention seem to be keeping it so hushed that I really don't mind.

          That you know of.

          It's not like they'd tell you where they got your info, or that the people working the phones would even know.

          But any spammer that calls my home phone gets the full meal deal where I waste as much of his time as possible. As they're about to rage quit, I say, "Oh yeah- I forgot to tell you that your mom will be home late again tonight, but this time she'll be paid!"

          That really makes them cranky and their rage is like music to my ears. Try it sometime.

      • Also, you're not buying anything from him - anymore than you're buying anything from Google: you're the product on display, not the customer.

        Actually, I did buy a phone from Google: a Pixel 4a 5G.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I would love to see some actual evidence to back these claims up.

        Maybe it's true in the US where you don't have much privacy, kind of ironic considering how much people complain about things being Orwellian... But in Europe if they were doing that it would be illegal and if anyone could prove it there would be massive fines, tens of billions of Euros.

        How, for example, does Google identify you if you say visit google.com via Firefox? Assume you don't have a Google account and are on a dynamic IP address like

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      All the large tech firms can already do this, across the many websites they provide services for, track you where ever you go and add it to your profile which has all your contact details and all your social media accounts and substantive product purchases history.

      They attempt to surreptitiously target advertising at you, they do not bombard you directly because, they know it would fail and piss people off. No point in doing it.

      Along comes douche bag business type thinks this is a great idea because spammi

  • I'm picturing someone with an adding machine, a typewriter, and two six-line Model 500 sitting on his desk. Probably still drives a 1984 Town Car, too.

    I knew a guy like this one. Doctor, who was a client of the company I worked for at the time. This was probably 2001-2002.

    This fella wanted to do the same as this ex car-felon.

    I didn't have the heart to tell him the NSA already had it.

  • Hopefully, this problem will self correct (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529@yahoo. c o m> on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:29PM (#61455564)

    A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale.

    "Hi, my name is Chad, from Sneed Automotive, how are you today, Mr. Jones?"

    "...How do you know my name?"

    "You visited our website."

    "And?"

    "And, we were able to contact you as a result of your visi--"

    *click*

    The conversion rate on these calls is going to be utter crap. There's a difference between a "vague awareness" that you're being tracked on the internet, and "explicitly getting a follow-up call about a website you visited".

    When the conversion rates for these calls don't justify the money spent on this level of tracking, it'll likely self-correct. Leave it to a car salesman to find the bottom of the scum on the lake floor, and say to himself, "This calls for trench digging equipment."

    • I think it's safe to say they won't tell the mark that the way they got their name is by having them visit a website. If you're already doing something this skeezy then you're more than happy to lie to the person you're calling. Also don't forget there's a lot of old people who have a lot of retirement money and their brains are kind of not all there. It's amazing how much money you can make off age related cognitive decline. Hopefully I die before I get to that point myself.
    • The conversion rate will be abysmal, and they'll stop the first day. Heck even the credit card companies, student load crap, car warranties... all use computers to make the first call, and they use Indian call centers to cut the cost even with the computer making you press 1. Dear Chad, don't, you are wasting your money.

    • "Hi, my name is Chad, from Sneed Automotive, how are you today, Mr. Jones?"

      Are people really still answering calls from unknown numbers? Ok, maybe a handful of folks have a legit reason to do so, but it's pretty easy to tell what a spammy 10 digit phone number looks like. Your example phone call there would never be answered by me in the first place. The ones that succeed are the ones that have spoofed my area code and prefix on my work cell, which is rare.

    • A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale.

      "Hi, my name is Chad, from Sneed Automotive, how are you today, Mr. Jones?"

      "...How do you know my name?"

      "You visited our website."

      "And?"

      "And, we were able to contact you as a result of your visi--"

      *click*"

      You got it all wrong. Chad clearly has penis and performance issues, and wouldn’t he like to try your performance pills. That way, he can rock his lady instead of having the pool boy do it while he makes calls. Be sure to get his number and email, so you can contact him if you get cut off, before you offer to sell them so he can join your “special” mailing and call list. If it’s a female, you can explainable to her the benefits of breast enhancement and pursuing a career in adult ent

  • Somebody sign up Chad... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Somebody needs to sign up Chad to every porn and other questionable site in existance.

  • evil (Score:2)

    by sxpert ( 139117 )

    that's epic creepy

  • say no more

  • Chad Sneed. Seriously. Now you're just f&cking with us.

  • Chad Sneed, Gower, Missouri (Score:5, Informative)

    by OtisSnerd ( 600854 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:36PM (#61455604)
    Hmmmm, so ol' Chadwick doesn't see any privacy issues....

    Chad Sneed, Gower, Missouri
    https://www.dealerrater.com/sa... [dealerrater.com]
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ch... [linkedin.com]
    https://www.facebook.com/sneed... [facebook.com]
    https://www.smartbackgroundche... [smartbackg...checks.com]

    • Someone wanting to drive the point home would hire one of these research firms and post worldwide everything they find.*

      *Naturally making certain it's all legal.

    • You make a good point, however the information on the first three links are made public on purpose. The problem comes for people that want to opt out of this shit and stay anonymous or at least not be targeted by scum, er, I mean advertisers.
      • While that's certainly true, it's the info that's available through those sleazy background check websites that makes things even worse. Combine the public info with the private details, it's quite easy to build a profile for someone (or anyone!) with quite accurate details. Then, just add something untrue / malicious on some other web service, then Chad suddenly has serious problems trying to get a new job, life insurance, enter back into the US after foreign travel, or deal with public fallout screwing up

    • Re:Chad Sneed, Gower, Missouri (Score:5, Informative)

      by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @06:50PM (#61455988)
      I think you have the wrong chad...He's this one, a used Car Salesmen, obviously born a rich brat.
      https://www.sneedford.com/meet-our-staff.html https://www.dealerrater.com/sa... [dealerrater.com]
      Chadwick is also a failed realtor with zero listings or sales.
      https://www.zillow.com/profile/chadwickts
      Chadwick, who is 36 years old lives at lives at 4950 Central St Apt 201, Kansas City, MO 64112-2524
      https://www.zabasearch.com/peo... [zabasearch.com]
    • I used to drive by this place on the way to my Dad's house. You can feel the sleeze from the road, lol. https://www.google.com/maps/@3... [google.com]

      Maybe give Chad a ring? His work phone number is (816) 281-9323 and email address chad@sneedford.com.

  • Legal and fair? Not here! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But after digging further, he discovered it's legal and that using the information for cold calling and emailing is fair game.

    Luckily I live in a civilized country where cold calling and emailing is illegal in itself, no matter how they got my info. And this kind of tracking is even more illegal, even if they don't use it for anything. (Denmark, EU, in case you are curious)

  • I use ad blockers and privacy extensions on all my devices. Since I first started using the internet I've used a fake name for every registration except for the few I make purchases on. If they manage to see through all that plus my VPN without breaking any laws I'd say it's time for some new ones.

  • a bunch of Privacy Rapists. [urbandictionary.com]

  • Where's the guy whining about the modern internet? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That whiny bastard complaining how he needs an email address to do anything on the Internet would have been on topic this time and yet he didn't post right away.

    You had one job, ONE JOB!

  • It would be a shame if this happened to you, Chad.

    https://www.dealerrater.com/sa... [dealerrater.com]

  • A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale.

    Annoy people who were just browsing and wanted to remain anonymous from "car salesmen". Can't understand why, though, they have such a great reputation for not hassling people -- oh, wait...

    And then there's this:

    But after digging further, he discovered it's legal and that using the information for cold calling and emailing is fair game.

    Better check those phone numbers against the Do Not Call list ...

  • Sneed (Score:1)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous,

    They were there by mistake. Actually looking for Sneed's Feed and Seed (formerly Chuck's).

  • Would it be illegal to fund a Kickstarter to hunt these fuckers down and throw them into wood chippers?

    (Asking for a friend)

    • https://www.zeugmaweb.net/arti... [zeugmaweb.net]

      Assassination Politics
      by Jim Bell

      How can we translate the freedom afforded by the Internet to ordinary life?

      How can we keep the government from banning encryption, digital cash, and other systems that will improve our freedom?

      A few months ago, I had a truly and quite literally "revolutionary" idea, and I jokingly called it "Assassination Politics": I speculated on the question of whether an organization could be set u

  • ... Just the name alone should be a warning sign.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @06:12PM (#61455878)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Is any company with the necessary data to match identity to a dynamic IP even selling to third parties?

    Apple, Google, Facebook and internet backbone/hub providers have the data to do it for a significant percentage of people with dynamic IPs ... are any of them even selling?

  • "Co-founder Chad Sneed noted that he doesn't see any privacy issues."
    Anyone have his home address?
  • Maybe they should just stop sucking at selling cars, slash their advertising budget entirely, and pass the savings in to people who contact them to... get this... buy cars.
  • Why am I not surprised? Freaking Chad ffs

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