• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, November 12, 2024

Racist text messages evoking slavery and targeted at Black men, women and students raised alarms across the U.S. last week. This should alarm everyone, but should be of even greater concern to audience targeting data companies, where the information likely originated.

The racially motivated messages demonstrated that data protection remains inadequate in a sea of legislation that makes it appear as if consumers are protected, and that media buyers are trustworthy. 

The text messages demonstrates how app developers, data brokers, companies that build and support targeting data, businesses and government agencies are not doing enough to protect consumers, despite laws and regulations that have been passed in recent years.

Messages identified recipients by name and were sent anonymously in Alabama, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Tennessee. They were sent using similar wording, but varied in tone.

Marketers pointed to app developers and data brokers as the likely way perpetrators gained access to personal data to target the victims, though it is not understood whether data brokers had been hacked or leaked the information.

Companies likely do not have a race segment in audience databases, but algorithms could be written to guess with a high level of accuracy, said Kevin Lee, chairman of digital marketing agency Didit, which was founded in 1996.

“The point isn't whether a specific data source is conjecture or not, but that it wouldn't be difficult to create a list of several hundreds of thousands of people who are highly likely to be of a specific race, especially with the use of AI,” Lee said. “One could even do a search of the social media profiles associated with the names and have an AI look at the skin tone.”

The FBI learned late last week that some of the messages appear to have been sent through TextNow. A competitor, TextSpot, told CNN a new user had signed up on Wednesday and attempted to use the platform to send a message with racist language.

But those who sent the racist text messages still needed data with names and numbers. Where did the data come from? 

Companies like AcquireWeb enable marketers to identify anonymous customers to activate messaging to their audience across email and social and display media.

Several major U.S. data-brokerage companies offer marketers access to postal names, addresses, and phone numbers along with demographic data for targeted marketing purposes, Lee said.

There is no shortage of political ads and they are targeted in many ways, from first-party custom audiences to uploaded custom audiences.

One marketing expert who asked for anonymity believes someone hacked or had access to the database owned by the Democratic and Republican National Committees and gave it to foreign agitators.

The DNC and RNC in 2012 began working to develop data hubs in the hopes of gathering voter data. The goal was to join voter file data with intent data.

Today there are dozens of marketplaces. For example, Madhive, a software platform for digital TV advertising, teamed up with Fox Television Stations earlier this year to launch a local marketplace for political advertising through connected television (CTV).

There are many small details about the legality of buying audiences or targeting ads based on race. They range from federal to state laws, platforms to ethical considerations. Google Gemini suggests that this is a complex issue with no straightforward answer.

For media buyers, there’s no specific federal law that explicitly prohibits media buyers from buying audiences based on race, but certain practices could potentially violate other laws, such as the Fair Housing Act or the Civil Rights Act, if they lead to discriminatory housing or employment practices.

Some states and localities, according to Google, have laws restricting the use of demographic data -- including race -- in advertising.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates political advertising and has rules to prevent discriminatory practices. And while these rules do not explicitly mention race, they do prohibit discrimination based on other protected characteristics.

There is no shortage of data and brokers. Acxiom has data on more than 260 million individuals and 190 million households in the U.S., including demographic, behavioral, financial and other data points.

Experian's ConsumerView database includes information on more than 300 million consumers and 126 million households.

Epsilon claims to have data on 250 million U.S. consumers, including demographic information, spending habits and other consumer insights.

Equifax, as a major credit reporting agency, has extensive financial and demographic data on more than 220 million U.S. consumers.

These data brokers offer marketers the ability to select demographic criteria and obtain corresponding postal addresses, names and phone numbers for targeted marketing campaigns.