The internship I was assigned in college was a local junkmail mill. I was supposed to sign an NDA at some point but never did. Apparently they were able to use FOIA requests targeted at localities to get a lot of information for mail campaign targeting that all got put in a big database. Seemed a little sketchy.
No need to do that when the USPS will sell it to them.
I think the FOIA's gots extra info like who got a permit to build a pool.
Never thought I would feel nostalgic for old school address labels. The current version of marketing is much more,
ah, specific. If you work with data about people, you
should read Christopher Wylie's description of more
powerful technology:
The "old school" data brokers were keeping track of menstrual cycles 20 years ago for timed targeted ads. They were very specific about many things. The new kids Google and Facebook didn't invent this game.
Mind posting some links about this? I'd be very interested in reading about it.
I think the show Mad Men mentions this, Peggy if I'm not mistaken. Lunar cycles correlate with menstrual cycles. [1]