A reader recently asked me if I knew anything about Acxiom's AboutTheData.com, an online portal that purportedly allows consumers to view and edit data that has been gathered on them to create a precisely targeted marketing profile. I had to admit I was not familiar, so I decided to investigate and share my findings.

To obtain more details on this site, and better determine if it's actually beneficial to consumers, I reached out to both Sheila Colclasure, Acxiom VP global executive for privacy and public policy, and Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a digital privacy and consumer protection organization.

Via email, Colclasure said: “AboutTheData.com, launched in September 2013, is the first online consumer portal of its kind, designed to allow U.S. consumers to view and update core data elements that are part of the information Acxiom makes available to advertisers for digital marketing. This portal … provides educational tools to help consumers gain a better understanding of how marketing data is used … (A) consumer can make the decision to edit their information and/or opt out completely.”

When I inquired about the portal's limitations, Colclasure conceded that AboutTheData's information is neither complete nor entirely correct, explaining that the latest data isn't always available. She also pointed out that “(AboutTheData) allows consumers to edit data about themselves and curate it the way they'd like. They may change correct data to incorrect data, such as (changing their) age from 52 to 43, for example.”

Colclasure said the portal's data is gathered from “different permissible sources” and includes demographic data, recent purchase categories, household interests, self-reported consumer surveys, warranty registrations and public records. Next to each entry, consumers can click an icon that lists the data sources.

When I asked Chester about Acxiom's AboutTheData portal, his take was, not surprisingly, a bit different.

Said Chester: “AboutTheData launched with great fanfare, but now it's a little known secret. I think Acxiom launched it because they were under pressure from digital privacy advocates like me and (Massachusetts Sen.) Ed Markey and the FTC. Then they stumbled on success when they acquired LiveRamp and found themselves at the center of the big data storm.”

LiveRamp is an “onboarding” service acquired by Acxiom in May 2014 that enables the merging of offline and online consumer data, such as where a person lives and how they behave online (via cookies) to create a consumer profile.

Though Chester acknowledged that Acxiom's AboutTheData provides a useful service, he argued that rather than just being allowed to edit Acxiom's “core data elements,” consumers should be able to opt out of collection of their data completely.

Chester suggested I check out Acxiom's list of featured partners for a better understanding of just how integrated all our data really is. Acxiom has partners that geolocate you via your mobile phone, ones that track your viewing habits, others that capture what you look at online.

Because of the magnitude and speed of “big data,” no single company — even one as powerfully interconnected as Acxiom — can truly provide a consumer access to all of his or her data; at best it can present a single slice from a single snapshot in time.

So where does that leave you, dear consumer? Basically caught between a rock and a hard place. You can log into AboutTheData.com (by providing your name, address, date of birth and last four digits of your SSN) and selectively edit your “core data elements,” but in reality you can't opt out entirely because new data is being gathered, analyzed, shared and sold about you every single day.

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Cathy Cunningham is a freelance columnist.