Article: Are you a pebble dash subtopian? - PROPERTY; How postcodes are used to classify every home in the country as a social stereotype, revealing where you holiday, what's in your fridge... and whether you're good for credit.

Byline: ROSS CLARK

You may be wondering why you have just received junk mail for a solar-powered lawnmower - the answer possibly lies deep inside a computer in Nottingham. Much of the information which direct marketing organisations use to target their likely customers is supplied by a powerful, if little known, company called Experian.

In the world of marketing, Experian is both poacher and gamekeeper: a credit agency which supplies banks with information about our personal creditworthiness, and a research organisation compiling the information that shops and travel agents use in order to titillate us with their latest wares.

Unknown to most ...

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