>> Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out?
> If that's a secret then how would they find out?
Companies in that space guard their upstream sources quite heavily, because they don't want to be cut out of the process. You won't find a centralized list of independent data feeds and providers specifically because of that. In one scenario, we were dealing with a substantial rate increase from one supplier. We spent time attempting to source an alternate supplier of that particular type of data, and could only find sources that were several months more stale than we were currently getting (i.e. these people were getting the feed several hops after we were). In the end we paid the rate increase because we couldn't find an alternate source that was as close to the original data provider as our current source. And without knowing who the original data provider was, we couldn't go around our supplier.
The lack of a centralized directory isn't just done to make things opaque for end users, it's done to make things opaque for business competitors as well. It's an industry that's very, very reliant on networking and introductions.
Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
And regarding this:
> Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
I understand that an NDA would prevent you from naming your own company or your suppliers and clients, but surely it doesn't prevent you from listing some other companies in this space that you know of (including but not limited to your competitors)? I don't understand why you shouldn't be able to name any company just because you've worked at one of them.
Just having that conversation required getting a mutual NDA in place, since the conversation involves revealing your capabilities (even if not your sources). And that's assuming you're even aware of all the NDAs your company has signed with other companies, which isn't always the case. Speculation or name dropping in public could violate an NDA you're not even aware of, then you find yourself having to defend your speculation as just that, rather than as revealing proprietary knowledge (that you didn't actually have but your company did).
At the end of the day, it's easier to default to speaking in generalizations rather than risk the potential repercussions of not doing that. :-/
Interesting. Eight years ago I worked as a buyer for the aggregator with the largest criminal database and I don't remember having to sign an NDA during those sorts of talks. It's possible I've forgotten, but I think it was more a matter of people wanting to know our coverage as much as we wanted to know theirs.
As an aside, the value of those talks wasn't usually in acquiring the data, except maybe in the short term. We always preferred to go directly to the source. The value was simply in learning that the data from a specific source was even available. In a few instances, that got pretty frustrating, since I knew that the seller of the data was scraping a given court's website against that court's wishes (and the TOS on the website), with all associated problems with accuracy and ethics that entails.
Those are provable damages, and maybe slander if they can convince the court they're a publication
Another reason to be NDAed up.
As an individual, that sounds like a lot of work for little gain, but if there were pre-filled out forms, and all I had to do was put in my name, I'd be willing to file lawsuits to get my name removed.
I'd expect going after such companies to be the state prosecutor's job.
What you're suggesting is more like a John Doe case where you sue a number of unknown entities, and that can be won, but at some point, the plaintiff has to name the John Does, so that they can defend themselves.
I'm pretty sure that if the named defendant coughs up an NDA that prevents them from disclosing the names of their business associates to a court, the judge is not just going to say, "I'll allow it."
I think you have a misunderstanding of what a US court can do. A court can only tell a specific party to take some action, and generally only if that party is somehow related to the legal action (such as being a defendant). Generally, there is no judgement that a court can make that can effect unnamed parties (unless they are John Does, which later have to be named).
Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies.
Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell?
The techniques used are generally trade secrets, and amount to competitive advantage. There is little incentive for a company to reveal this information (or for an employee to do so, and thus open themselves up to legal liability).