The Pipeline Behind Your Mailbox Every piece of unsolicited catalog mail arriving at your door passed through a supply chain before it got there. That chain begins long before a catalog company ever hears your name. It starts with ordinary, unremarkable transactions — buying a house, signing up for a store loyalty …

Hundreds of millions of Americans are searchable by name right now Type a name and a city into Spokeo or Whitepages and you get a home address, phone number, age, relatives, and often a neighborhood map pin — within seconds, for free. The Federal Trade Commission has documented this dynamic for years: data brokers …