@DU556 wrote:
What I'm worried about is how do these companies offer these services for free? Do they sell you info? If yes, what exactly do they sell?
It's always a very good idea to read a site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use before signing up for a service.
The privacy policy outlines what data they collect, how they collect it and what they share with others, both individually and in aggregate.
Using Credit Karma as an example -
From what I can see from a quick scan on CK they are using both google ad services and direct referral links.
They get paid for impressions (you seeing an ad) and click-throughs (you click on a link leading to a ccc/credit company).
Direct referral links pay more, but usually only when you apply & are accepted.
How much they make on a per-person basis is very small/variable, but when you have thousands of accounts the pennies add up.
They use your CR data to match you up with advertisers (e.g. your UTIL goes up and you start seeing ads for personal loans/BT cards) but don't share your reports with third parties.
They also aggregate analytics/traffic data which they likely share with advertisers to leverage higher advertising fees.
In a nutshell they do what every other ad-powered site does.
The other sites listed here are likely the same but of course, always read the PP & ToS on any site you are giving your information to.
Email-wise - I wildcard my emails so I can track where senders got my email from - e.g. creditkarma+myemail@gmail.com
I have accounts on most of these free tracking sites and have not seen spam from any of the emails I use for these sites.
Of course YMMV.
. Only so much any of these can really offer beyond access to the report, and CK does that in style for EQ / TU.
