https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/04/28/editorial-delete-act-would-give-californians-privacy-protections/

Big data is big business. An estimated 2,000-4,000 data brokers around the world have created an estimated $200 billion industry from the data they collect, largely without consumers’ knowledge.

Acxiom, one of the leading global brokers, says it has collected data from 2.5 billion consumers, which equates to roughly half of the world’s 5 billion active internet users. The data has many legitimate, useful purposes — such as understanding consumers wants and needs and improving companies’ branding efforts.