An infomediary is a company that sits in the middle between people and other businesses — but for information, not for goods. It collects facts about what people buy, how often they buy, and what they like, and it usually pays those people for sharing. Then it sells that picture of “what customers do” to other companies, without handing over private details such as a name or home address. The idea, on paper, is that you stay in control of your data and the infomediary is the trusted go-between. The word is a blend, coined in 1997 in a business magazine, and it never became a kitchen-table word. You will mainly meet it in marketing, internet-privacy, and business-school writing. Though actually, many companies that hold data today do not work this cleanly; the textbook infomediary was meant to protect you, not just harvest you. It is easy to confuse with a plain intermediary (any go-between) or with infomercial (a long TV advert).

資訊仲介商（蒐集消費資訊再轉賣、但不交出個資的中介公司）