If the ads you see in December feel a little too accurate, you are not imagining it. 

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

If you do not clean it up before the year ends, that profile will follow you into 2026. It fuels more scam calls, targeted ads, identity theft attempts and privacy risks you never agreed to. Here is how your profile forms, why data brokers want it and how to erase it fast.

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FBI WARNS EMAIL USERS AS HOLIDAY SCAMS SURGE

Your digital shopping profile forms the moment you shop online

Your profile starts forming the second you browse Amazon, Target, Sephora, Walmart or any online store. Every interaction adds new data points, including:

• Items you viewed
• Items you added to your cart
• Purchases and near-purchases
• Shipping and billing addresses
• Total spending
• Preferred brands
• Device type and browser
• IP address and physical location

Activity spikes in November and December. You are searching for gifts, deals, decorations and electronics. Data brokers watch this surge and collect more aggressively.

How data brokers get your information

Data brokers gather your personal information from several places at once. Here 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 that handle your information, the higher the risk of exposure.

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

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

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

2) Shopping apps track far more than what you buy

Apps from Amazon, Temu, Walmart, SheinTarget and others track everything you do. They often collect:

• Real-time location
• Device data
• Contact lists if allowed
• Swipe patterns
• Time spent viewing specific items

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

3) Price-comparison tools copy your browsing habits

Browser plugins that offer price drops or deal matching often collect far more than you expect. An FTC investigation revealed that they can capture details from location and demographics to mouse movements.

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

What scammers can do with your digital shopping profile

Scammers use these profiles to run more convincing attacks during the holiday season. With access to your data, they can:

• Send fake order confirmations
• Launch refund scams
• Send fraudulent delivery texts
• Commit identity theft
• Resell your information to other criminals

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

PROTECT YOUR DATA BEFORE HOLIDAY SHOPPING SCAMS STRIKE

Why December is the best month to delete your data

Each January brings a surge in scams, including refund scams, account update scams, IRS scams, Medicare scams and subscription renewal scams. Many of these attacks rely on the holiday shopping data collected in the weeks before.

If you delete your data now, you reduce:

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

Data brokers must delete your information once you request it. 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 nearly impossible. You would need to contact and send opt-out requests to:

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

One at a time.

The fastest way to delete your digital shopping profile

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

While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with 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 scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Your digital shopping profile may feel invisible, but it shapes the ads you see, the scams you receive and how exposed your personal information becomes. 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 up. 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 most after learning how data brokers track you? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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