Glossary
What is an information broker?
An information broker is a researcher for hire: someone paid to track down facts, documents or answers that a client can't easily find.
Updated
Definition
An information broker is a person or firm paid to locate, research and deliver information on request, such as market facts, company records or published studies. Today the phrase is also used loosely for businesses that sell personal data, which are better called data brokers.
Two meanings of one phrase
The older meaning is an occupation. An information broker, also called an independent information professional, takes a question from a client and returns an answer: a competitor's filings, the patents in a field, the literature on a drug, the ownership chain of a company. The client pays for the research time and the finished brief, not for a database.
The newer, looser meaning treats the phrase as a synonym for a company trading in personal records. Privacy articles and some people-search sites use it that way. US registry laws, such as California's, use the term data broker for those firms, so that is the clearer label for them.
Where the occupation came from
The trade grew with online databases. Before the web, searching commercial research services took training and paid accounts, so companies hired specialists, many of them former librarians. In June 1987 Marilyn Levine and 26 fellow information brokers formed the Association of Independent Information Professionals, which still represents the field. The work has shifted from running searches to judging sources and writing analysis, because raw searching is now easy and the hard part is knowing what is reliable.
Worked example: research brief versus dataset deal
Suppose a mid-sized insurer wants to understand flood claims in a coastal county. An information broker would gather public flood maps, published studies and local news, then write a short report with sources. The insurer gets an answer and owns the report.
Now suppose the same insurer wants ten years of water-level sensor readings held by a private engineering firm. That is a dataset deal. Someone has to confirm the engineering firm owns the readings, agree what the insurer may do with them, and draft a licence. In this illustration, the first job is information brokering and the second is data brokering. The skills overlap, sourcing and judging quality, but the second involves rights and contracts over the data itself.
Information broker, data broker and aggregator side by side
| Term | What is sold | Usual client | What the client walks away with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information broker | Research time and a written answer | A business, law firm or researcher with a question | A report or a set of documents |
| Data broker | Data, or the arrangement of a data sale | Marketers, lenders, AI labs, analysts | A file, feed or licence to a dataset |
| Data aggregator | A combined database built from many sources | Subscribers to the combined product | Access to the merged records |
Why the difference matters
If you search for this term because you want to start a business, decide which job you mean. A research practice sells expertise by the hour or by the project and rarely touches data protection rules beyond normal confidentiality. A business that sells personal records may have to register under state data broker laws, honour deletion requests and follow the Fair Credit Reporting Act if its reports are used for eligibility decisions. A business brokering company datasets sits between the two: no consumer profiles, but serious questions about ownership and licence terms.
Mistakes people make with the term
- Assuming every information broker sells personal data. Most independent researchers never do.
- Using the phrase in a contract or a registration form where the law uses a defined term such as data broker.
- Treating an information request as if it gave you rights to the source data. A report about a dataset is not a licence to the dataset.
Sources
| Source | What it supports | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| AIIP: AIIP History | The 1987 founding of the association by Marilyn Levine and 26 information brokers | 2026-11-07 |
| California Privacy Protection Agency: Information for Data Brokers | That California's registry uses the term data broker and requires yearly registration | 2026-11-07 |
| FTC: Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability (2014) | How firms selling consumer data gather and pass records between one another | 2026-11-07 |
Questions people ask
What does an information broker do?
Takes research questions from clients and answers them: searching databases, public records and published sources, checking what is reliable, and delivering a report or a set of documents.
Is an information broker the same as a data broker?
Not in the traditional sense. An information broker sells research services. A data broker sells data or arranges its sale. The phrases are sometimes swapped in privacy writing, but registry laws use data broker.
Is information brokering a real job?
Yes. Independent researchers have worked under this name for decades, and the Association of Independent Information Professionals was formed in 1987 to represent them.
Do information brokers need a licence?
There is no general licence for research work. Rules apply to particular activities instead, such as private investigation, which many states license, or selling personal data, which can trigger data broker registration.
Related
- What is a data broker?What a data broker is, the different kinds, where their data comes from, and which laws they answer to in the United States.
- How to become a data brokerHow to become a data broker who brings company datasets to buyers: the skills, the legal checks, the documents and the order you do them in.
- Data broker laws by stateData broker laws in the United States, state by state: who must register, what it costs, when it is due and what happens if you don't.
Become a data broker
The DataBroker course and tools: find companies with data to sell, price it, license it and close the deal.