Glossary
- What Is Counter-Profiling?October 22, 2026Counter-profiling is shaping the profile that data brokers build about you so their inferences come out wrong or useless. A working definition, with its limits.
- What Is a Data Broker?October 22, 2026A data broker collects personal information from many sources and sells or shares it. How brokers get your data, who regulates them, and what DROP changes.
- What Is Data Poisoning in Privacy?October 22, 2026In privacy work, data poisoning means seeding believable false details on broker sites to hide the true ones. What it is, what it isn't, and the risks.
- What Is Data Sovereignty?October 22, 2026Data sovereignty has two meanings: a national one about which laws govern stored data, and a personal one about owning your information. How the two differ.
- What Is De-Indexing?October 22, 2026De-indexing removes a page from search results without deleting the page. How Google's Results about you works, what it can't do, and why the source matters.
- What Is a Deterministic Workflow?October 22, 2026A deterministic workflow follows a predefined path and gives the same result from the same input. How it differs from an AI agent, and why that matters.
- What Is Doxxing?October 22, 2026Doxxing is publishing someone's private or identifying information online, usually to harass or endanger them. What it is, how the law treats it, and the risk.
- What Is EXIF Metadata?October 22, 2026EXIF is the data a camera or phone writes inside every photo: date, device, settings and often GPS location. What it holds and how to stop sharing it.
- What Is OSINT?October 22, 2026OSINT is intelligence built from publicly available information to answer a specific question. What it covers, who uses it, and why legal isn't ethical.
- What Is a People-Search Site?October 22, 2026A people-search site is a consumer-facing data broker that lets anyone look up a person's address, phone and relatives. How they work and how opt-outs go.
- What Is a Privacy Broker?October 22, 2026A privacy broker finds where a person's information is exposed and removes, buries or corrupts it for them. What the job is, what it isn't, and who hires one.
- What Is the Right to Erasure?October 22, 2026The right to erasure lets people ask companies to delete their personal data. How GDPR Article 17 and California's deletion rights work, and where they stop.
- What Is a SIM Swap?October 22, 2026A SIM swap moves your phone number to a SIM an attacker controls, so they receive your texts and login codes. How it works, the FCC rules, and how to defend.