> 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.

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.

Okay, I see. But somehow someone in your company found out about them before they could sign mutual NDAs, right? How does that happen? Do you just need a higher-up who's friends with the right people?

Imagine the legal liability you'd incur if the layperson could track the source of inaccurate data, then proved in court it kept them from getting a loan.

Those are provable damages, and maybe slander if they can convince the court they're a publication

Another reason to be NDAed up.

i imagine its similar to how drugs and weapons dealers meet. when you know seedy people, you get connected. birds of a feather and all that.