This week John Oliver talks about Data brokers - companies which collect our personal information on the Internet and sell it to third parties. These companies use third party cookies which track our online activity, pair them with other relevant data and sell it to advertisers and other businesses. Personal data which companies collect or infer include personal medical data, sexual preferences, religious affiliation, current location etc. While some companies anonymize collected data, the collected personal data can be used to precisely identify a person and their contact details. In some cases, this data was used by stalkers and abusers to find and track people in order to harm them. Governments too use such data to investigate a person without a warrant. John argues that lawmakers need to do something about it. John also talks about the portrayal of Russian military atrocities in Ukraine by the Russian state TV and about DirectTV dropping OAN for spreading misinformation about the Ukraine war.
