and its chairwoman, edith ramirez, joins us to talk about it. welcome.st, tell us how this works. who are these data brokers? who are they collecting information for and to what end? >> jeff, thank you for having me here with you. well, these are companies that consumers simply don't know about, but they're companies that collect massive amounts of information about all of us. what is astonishing is the sheer breadth of their data collection and data practices. what's happening here is that all of us as we shop online, as we browse the web, whenever we post to social networks, we will be leaving the general bread crumbs these companies are scooping up and aggregating also with offline public information. >> brown: well, what's the problem? for many of us, a lot of this data, well, it helps us, right? it sends us to the right places. we use a lot of it ourselves for our shopping habits. what's the problem? >> let me emphasize that the data brokers collect the information, they share the information and sell it to other companies who use it for a variety o

we talk to the chairwoman of the federal trade commission, edith ramirez. >> we are all being classifiedorized based on our age, our income, socioeconomic status, even our political leanings, or religious affiliations.

on friday, we'll talk with federal trade commission head edith ramirez on her push for consumer datatection laws. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you, on-line and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> when i was pregnant, i got more advice than i knew what to do with. what i needed was information i could trust, on how to take care of me and my baby. united healthcare has a simple program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get care and guidance they can use before and after the ba