Data broker companies: consumer brokers and AI buyers
The short answer
Data broker companies fall into two groups. Consumer data brokers sell profiles of people. The FTC's 2014 study named nine. AI data companies are newer. They license, place or take company records such as emails, tickets and CRM history, through marketplaces, referral programs and direct data partnerships.
The same two words describe two different businesses. Mixing them up sends owners to the wrong pages and the wrong laws.
A "data broker" resells consumer data and must register in some states. AI data companies work with company records, which is a different business under different laws.
In plain words
Consumer brokers sell facts about people. AI buyers want records of how work gets done.
Think of it like this
One sells the phone book. The other borrows the how-to shelf at the library.
What is a consumer data broker?
California's privacy agency says a data broker "collects personal information about consumers from various sources and sells that information to other companies" (CPPA registry page).
The Delete Act covers a business that sells personal information about people it has no direct relationship with.
The FTC's May 2014 study looked at nine data brokers (FTC). They were Acxiom, CoreLogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics, Intelius, PeekYou, Rapleaf and Recorded Future.
Their product is information about people. Buyers use it for marketing, identity checks and fraud detection.
California residents have been able to file one deletion request to every registered data broker through its DROP platform. Brokers must process those requests from 1 Aug 2026 (same CPPA page).
What are AI data companies?
People sometimes call these companies AI data brokers. They license company data, place it with AI labs or run data partnerships with companies.
The labs want records of real work. A support ticket or a finance report request would count. A marketplace or referral front end sits between you and them.
Here are two that sit between you and the labs, from our review of this market. All terms are self-reported unless noted.
- Troveo: marketplace that added business data in 2026, with a revenue share and an unpublished split.
- SimpleClosure Asset Hub: shutdown service that sold nearly 100 startups' data at $10,000 to $100,000.
micro1, Handshake AI and Mercor deal with companies directly. Our buyer directory covers each one the same way.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Why does the difference matter to a company owner?
Your records hold people's words. Consumer privacy law reaches you even though you are not a consumer data broker.
California treats a transfer of personal information for money or other valuable consideration as a sale. The exception is data that meets the statute's deidentified test (Civ. Code 1798.140).
Run the rights check and read the risk map. Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
