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by spidermango 2424 days ago
Great now google can track my biometrics
5 comments

Google's corporate mission is "to organize the world's information" - that includes your biometrics - "and make it universally accessible and useful" (for adtech industry).
So if Google acquired Fitbit, I'm guessing it would have access to all historical Fitbit user data.

When is the U.S. going to get proper user data protections?

Oh, just wait until they expand Verily in a big way, they're going to have some crazy data on biometrics
That's the whole point, isn't it? And then sell it to healthcare providers, so you can receive timely advice! :-D
And let's be clear that by "healthcare providers," we mean insurance companies.

And by "timely advice," we mean notifications that you need to shop for new insurance, because they've detected that you have become a riskier bet and are dropping your coverage.

And higher premiums because they can detect some anomaly in your heart rhythm. Oh sorry we can't insure you because Google sold us your fitbit info and you have a preexisting condition you aren't aware of.
I don't know about selling it healthcare providers but integrating it as an audience with Google Ad's seems like the likely path. They know your location, now it's knowing your body data to target an audience segment.
Advice... or Adverts?
If you thought Google knew a lot about you before...

There are massive potential benefits to mass medical data collection and analysis. From early detection and prevention of epidemics to individualized, detailed, precise medical advice (e.g. you, specifically, might be fine eating lots of fat, but have an obscure risk factor involving, say, olives or almonds or something.)

To me it seems clearly insane to give that much power to such a relatively unaccountable entity.

There's a competitor to Fitbit and one thing coming down their pipeline can detect blood alcohol level. They are about to enter a market in a staunchly Muslim nation. See the potential for problems?