Consumer data accumulation began with 1980s credit card marketing.

Evidence

This sector has been growing for a long time, in part through marketers’ accumulation of consumer data, such as credit card data, which began in the 1980s. In the past fifteen years, however, the social quantification sector has achieved a new depth and complexity. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 35

Categorization

• SHARE: A precise dating detail — credit card data accumulation since the 1980s — that grounds when the social quantification sector really started.