Data Broker Tycoon: a free game about data brokers

What is Data Broker Tycoon?

Buy harmless-looking scraps (a quiz answer, a loyalty card, a fitness app) and merge the ones that share an email, phone or device. Soon each made-up stranger has a full file. Then see what that means for your own data.

Data Broker Tycoon is a free satire game about the people-data trade. You buy scraps that look harmless: a quiz answer, a loyalty card, a fitness app.

Two scraps that share an email, phone or device belong to the same person. Merge them until each made-up stranger has a complete file, then see what that means for your own data.

At a glance

Category

Social Engineering

Difficulty

Medium

Play time

3–5 min

Price

Free, in your browser, sign-up optional

How to play

Merge

Two scraps sharing an identifier join one file: +120. A wrong pair: −30.

Win

One complete file per person, with few wrong guesses.

Three levels

Beginner, Intermediate or Expert, picked before you play: the content and the clock change, and each level keeps its own best score.

Satire

Satire with a lesson: every name, brand and platform is made up, and every run ends on how to spot the trick.

Scoring

+120 per merge, −30 per wrong pair. Win with one complete file per person and few wrong guesses.

Each level keeps its own best score in this browser.

What it trains

Privacy awareness

How small scraps add up.

Pattern matching

Linking records by shared identifiers.

Strategy and tips

Follow the identifiers

An email, a phone number or a device ID is the glue.

Careful pairs

A wrong pair costs 30 points.

Expert

Four people, four scraps each, 45 seconds.

Why play Data Broker Tycoon?

Seeing how one shared email links everything makes privacy advice concrete.

Frequently asked questions