Holiday shopping data brokers track your every move this December

If the ads you’re seeing in December seem so subtle, you’re not imagining it.

The holiday shopping season is the busiest time of the year for retailers and consumers Data brokers. These companies quietly track, collect, and sell your personal information. Every search, click, cart addition, and purchase feeds a digital shopping profile linked to your name, phone number, email, and address.

If you don’t clean it up before the end of the year, this profile will follow you into 2026. It fuels more scam calls, targeted ads, identity theft attempts, and privacy risks you never agreed to. Here’s how to shape your profile, why data brokers want it and how to delete it quickly.

Sign up for my free CyberGuy report
Get the best tech tips, breaking security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide – for free when you join my site CYBERGUY.COM Newsletter.

FBI warns email users as holiday scams increase

Your digital shopping profile is shaped every time you browse, click or buy during the holiday season. (Istock)

Your digital shopping profile is shaped the moment you shop online

Your profile starts taking shape the moment you browse Amazon, Target, Sephora, Walmart, or any online store. Each interaction adds new data points, including:

• Items you’ve viewed
• Items you have added to your shopping cart
• Purchases and nearby purchases
• Shipping and billing addresses
• Total spending
• Favorite brands
• Device and browser type
• IP address and physical location

Activity picks up in November and December. You’re looking for gifts, deals, decorations and electronics. Data brokers Watch this boom and collect even stronger.

How data brokers get your information

Data brokers collect your personal information from several places at once. Below are the most common sources.

1) Retailers send your shopping data to third parties

Most retailers use analytics, advertising, or measurement partners. These partners are often data brokers. The more companies handle your information, the greater the risk of exposure.

Marketing tools may analyze personal details such as age, race, gender, location, and shopping habits. Even without explicit consent, partners often receive:

• Full purchase history
• Timestamps
• Product categories
• Loyalty account details

Some stores even share in-store behavior when you scan your loyalty card.

2) Shopping apps track much more than what you buy

Applications From Amazon, Temu, Walmart, SheinTarget and more track everything you do. They often combine:

• Location in real time
• Device data
• Contact lists if allowed
• Scrolling patterns
• The time spent viewing specific items

This behavioral data becomes extremely valuable to data brokers. It also helps scammers understand how to target you.

Data brokers collect this activity from retailers, apps and tools to create a detailed record of your habits. (Istock)

3) Price comparison tools copy your browsing habits

Browser plugins that offer price cuts or match deals often collect much more than you expect. An FTC investigation revealed that they can capture details from location and demographics to mouse movements.

Data points like these are packaged, sold, and added to your digital shopping profile. Fraudsters can then build highly targeted attacks.

What scammers can do with your digital shopping profile

Scammers use these profiles to carry out more convincing attacks during the holiday season. By accessing your data, they can:

• Sending fake order confirmations
• Launching refund scams
• Sending fraudulent text messages
• Committing identity theft
• Resell your information to other criminals

If you interact with a scam even once, your profile may be marked as verified. This makes you a priority target for future attacks.

Protect your data before holiday shopping scams happen

Why December is the best month to delete your data?

Every January brings a significant increase in scams, including refund scams, account update scams, IRS scams, health care scams, and subscription renewal scams. Many of these attacks rely on Holiday shopping data Collected in previous weeks.

If you delete your data now, you reduce:

• Scam calls
• Spam emails
• Targeted phishing attempts
• The number of companies that hold your personal information

Data brokers must delete your information upon request. Acting now limits how much of your 2025 activity they can store and resell.

What really happens on the dark web, and how to stay safe

However, removing your data manually is almost impossible. You will need to contact and send unsubscribe requests to:

• People search sites
• Marketing data brokers
• Retail data aggregators
• Ad targeting vendors
• Shopping analytics platforms
• Credit-linked identity brokers

One by one.

The quickest way to delete your digital shopping profile

That’s why I recommend using an automated data removal service. They remove your exposed data from hundreds of data broker sites and continue to monitor for new threats.

While no service can guarantee complete removal of your data from the Internet, a data removal service is truly a smart choice. It’s not cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by systematically monitoring and scraping your personal information from hundreds of websites. This gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to clear your personal data from the Internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of fraudsters cross-referencing data from breaches to information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free check to see if your personal information really exists on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Clearing your data in December reduces fraud, reduces targeted tracking, and protects your privacy heading into the new year. (Istock)

Get a free check to see if your personal information is already on the web: Cyberguy.com.

Key takeaways for Kurt

Your digital shopping profile may seem invisible, but it shapes the ads you see, the scams you receive, and the exposure of your personal information. The holiday season gives data brokers more information in two months than they collect during the rest of the year. Use December to clean it. With a few smart steps and an automated data removal service, you can enter 2025 with fewer scams, fewer trackers, and more control over your privacy.

What part of your digital shopping profile surprised you the most after learning how data brokers track you? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

Click here to download the FOX NEWS app

Sign up for my free CyberGuy report
Get the best tech tips, breaking security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide – for free when you join my site CYBERGUY.COM Newsletter.

Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.