credit reference agencies

I attended a presentation by our marketing team at work today in which they had done some serious customer profiling - breaking down age, beliefs, what they watch on TV, how they're motivated etc etc. They'd enlisted the services of a large credit reference agency (you know which one) to perform data mining and analytics of our transaction data. I was a bit freaked out by this - I hadn't realised until now that these scumbag companies are using their capabilities in this way, to assist marketeers in generating consumer desire, as well as then independently persecuting (via their debt collection arm) the percentage of consumers who go on to become "delinquent" debtors. i was startled to see this loop of self-interest laid out so plainly. For example:

http://www.experian.co.uk/business-services/marketing-services.html

http://www.experian.co.uk/business-services/debt-collection.html

It puts me in mind of those private sector prison companies who lobby politicians for more punitive carceral sentences - creating market demand for their product (which happens to be misery).

So anyway, my colleagues weren't massively receptive to this point of view so I thought I'd skulk over here to start a thread about it. I'm in no doubt that these companies are some of the worst, most parasitical bastards around and I wondered if anyone had anything of interest to share, whether it's further insights on the topic, horror stories or active strategies for resisting and disrupting what they do.