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by woodrowbarlow 2283 days ago
let me make a point about why i see one type of targeting as benign and the other (which i suppose could be called 'collaborative targeted marketing', because it involves sharing or aggregating data from multiple sources) as dangerous.

if i subscribe to a magazine about fishing and it includes an advertisement about some new fishing lure, well... it's obvious why the fishing magazine might think i'm into fishing.

but if i just bought a pack of diapers at walmart and then start seeing mailers for baby monitors from jc penny, that's when i start to get nervous.

my fear is of a world where i call up a health insurance provider, ask for a quote, and they say "according to facebook market research, your hobbies include BASE jumping based on the videos you watch on youtube. therefore your premium rate will be [$xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.00].".
1 comments
avalys 2283 days ago
Do you think it should be legal for health insurers to ask you about your dangerous hobbies, and charge you more?

If so, are you really just upset about the idea of not being able to easily lie to them?

If not, why do you think other policyholders should pay more to cover your risky hobbies?

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woodrowbarlow 2283 days ago
no, i'm worried about health insurance providers drawing incomplete conclusions and making inaccurate assumptions about my hobbies based on my internet browsing habits alone.

in reality, at least in the US, they wouldn't tell you the details of how they arrived at that quote. i only spelled it out in my comment to make my point (my example was also an extreme and oversimplified one). in reality, i would call, they would give me a number that got spit out from a black box, and then i would need to either accept it or keep shopping around with other black boxes.

it's not just about health insurance, of course. it's a more general concern about how my internet browsing habits are affecting or will affect other arenas of my life.

i should never have to say to myself "hmm. this webpage offers legal content with information that interests me, but maybe i shouldn't view it because it might negatively affect my shadow profiles which are used to gatekeep my access to certain elements of my society.". i'm not saying we're there now, but as others have said, this type of data collection and sharing at this scale is fairly new, and it has the potential to go in that direction. (and has already made steps in that direction.)

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