4 ms·

The day is not that far, when you look to buy say car insurance, and you get $XYZ as a quote. Your ur friend gets $ABC where $ABC <<< $XYZ. Why? because the pro

The day is not that far, when you look to buy say car insurance, and you get $XYZ as a quote. Your ur friend gets $ABC where $ABC <<< $XYZ. Why? because the profile that all these corporation built on you seems to suggest you have the character profile of a 19 year old. Is there a way you could prevent this? Yes, if you care about privacy and not let someone build that database in the first place. It's not only/always the NSA that we need to worry about.. You can already see this in some sense. A flight ticket could cost more if you look for it using a Mac instead of a PC. The road to creepy data mess is not that far.

savanaly 8y ago
Information about what you're willing to pay isn't sufficient to lead to you paying a higher price, like in your example. There has to be no competition in the given market (probably not the case in your particular example-- car insurance).
- hobofan 8y ago
  What competition? Oh, you mean those companies on the second page of the search results?
  - savanaly 8y ago
    Lack of ability for companies to advertise to you seems like a distinct concern from that of how much information they have about you, let's take it one at a time!
    - hobofan 8y ago
      > Lack of ability for companies to advertise to you seems like a distinct concern It's not about "lack of ability to advertise", it's about someone being able to heavily manipulate the perceived availability of competition (which is much more important than the real availability of competition). And that someone is the same someone that helps the companies manipulate the price (hint: it's Google).
- trendia 8y ago
  This is the exact opposite of what economics would predict. If you have a greater risk than your friend, then you will pay more because your expected risk is higher. In perfect competition, your rate would be equal to your expected return (that is, the premiums would match the expected payout). So, if an insurer can identify that you have a greater risk than your friend, in perfect competition you would pay a higher rate. No insurer with perfect knowledge of risk would allow you to pay less than that, because they’re expected return would be negative.
  - savanaly 8y ago
    I was assuming they were concerned about you being charged more than the cost of providing the insurance. If the supposed dystopia is indeed merely the reality where everyone gets charged the cost of providing the service I have to ask how exactly you think things work right now.
- reacharavindh 8y ago
  Competition and free market is not always the best solution to all the problems. In this case, what if all insurance companies are allowed to build such profiles? They all rely on that creepy data hoarder that built the shitty profile on you. In that case the companies will compete to give you competitive yet higher than others quotes to YOU(as they can see).
occamrazor 8y ago
> Is there a way you could prevent this? Yes, regulations on insurance pricing factors and on use of personal data.
- reacharavindh 8y ago
  True. However, I can easily guard my data than to effect politics and regulations all over the world. Why not both?
- sandov 8y ago
  Yeah, who needs freedom anyway? Your solution is worse than the problem.
  - jonbronson 8y ago
    How is regulation to protect people from being taken advantage of by malicious data-mining practices "worse" than the actual practice of maliciously mining data to rip people off?
    - sandov 8y ago
      Limiting freedom is bad unless you have a very good reason to do so. Does it make sense to ask "Why is fascism bad?". At a philosophical level it makes sense to ask this, but most of us would agree that freedom is desirable, because it allows people to develop their life project and be happy, while allowing other people to be happy (or at least try to be). Fascism is the totally opposite of freedom, therefore most of agree that fascism is bad. Is there a good reason to undermine freedom in this case? I don't think so. Some people may find that giving up their privacy for convenience is worth it, others, like me, would think the opposite, but we individually make the decision to use or not use Google, Facebook, etc. "Being taken advantage" is subjective. Even if it was generally considered to be "malicious" and "being taken advantage of", you're arbitrarily twisting the rules of the game, to favor one group of people (the "users") and impair others (those that create the service). You may say: Yeah, but those being impaired already have millions of dollars and those being "protected" are good people. So, you decide who is "good people" and whose freedom doesn't matter? Should millionaires have less rights than poor people? Laws should correct for the amount of money/power people have, is that fair? I don't think so.
jrockway 8y ago
I feel like insurance companies are already doing this in a more transparent way: https://www.joinroot.com/ https://www.joinroot.com/ If you want the lower rate, you let them track you with the app. If you don't, you call up Geico or whatever and let them decide based on your age and zip code. Chrome Sync has nothing to do with this.
- munk-a 8y ago
  I disagree. I think this is indeed a known exchange of your privacy for value, but when people not using the app also find their life insurance rates going up it'll be a different story. I also think all of us are terrible at determining the value of our privacy and it's an asset we don't miss until it's gone. It's for that reason that I think the sale of privacy is something we can't leave up to unregulated industry because not all parties have good information on the goods they are exchanging.
ben_jones 8y ago
You missed the part where the algorithm is written and improperly maintained by underpayed and underqualified developers and routinely spits out wrong answers.

savanaly 8y ago

Information about what you're willing to pay isn't sufficient to lead to you paying a higher price, like in your example. There has to be no competition in the given market (probably not the case in your particular example-- car insurance).

hobofan 8y ago
What competition? Oh, you mean those companies on the second page of the search results?
- savanaly 8y ago
  Lack of ability for companies to advertise to you seems like a distinct concern from that of how much information they have about you, let's take it one at a time!
  - hobofan 8y ago
    > Lack of ability for companies to advertise to you seems like a distinct concern It's not about "lack of ability to advertise", it's about someone being able to heavily manipulate the perceived availability of competition (which is much more important than the real availability of competition). And that someone is the same someone that helps the companies manipulate the price (hint: it's Google).
trendia 8y ago
This is the exact opposite of what economics would predict. If you have a greater risk than your friend, then you will pay more because your expected risk is higher. In perfect competition, your rate would be equal to your expected return (that is, the premiums would match the expected payout). So, if an insurer can identify that you have a greater risk than your friend, in perfect competition you would pay a higher rate. No insurer with perfect knowledge of risk would allow you to pay less than that, because they’re expected return would be negative.
- savanaly 8y ago
  I was assuming they were concerned about you being charged more than the cost of providing the insurance. If the supposed dystopia is indeed merely the reality where everyone gets charged the cost of providing the service I have to ask how exactly you think things work right now.
reacharavindh 8y ago
Competition and free market is not always the best solution to all the problems. In this case, what if all insurance companies are allowed to build such profiles? They all rely on that creepy data hoarder that built the shitty profile on you. In that case the companies will compete to give you competitive yet higher than others quotes to YOU(as they can see).

occamrazor 8y ago

> Is there a way you could prevent this? Yes, regulations on insurance pricing factors and on use of personal data.

reacharavindh 8y ago
True. However, I can easily guard my data than to effect politics and regulations all over the world. Why not both?
sandov 8y ago
Yeah, who needs freedom anyway? Your solution is worse than the problem.
- jonbronson 8y ago
  How is regulation to protect people from being taken advantage of by malicious data-mining practices "worse" than the actual practice of maliciously mining data to rip people off?
  - sandov 8y ago
    Limiting freedom is bad unless you have a very good reason to do so. Does it make sense to ask "Why is fascism bad?". At a philosophical level it makes sense to ask this, but most of us would agree that freedom is desirable, because it allows people to develop their life project and be happy, while allowing other people to be happy (or at least try to be). Fascism is the totally opposite of freedom, therefore most of agree that fascism is bad. Is there a good reason to undermine freedom in this case? I don't think so. Some people may find that giving up their privacy for convenience is worth it, others, like me, would think the opposite, but we individually make the decision to use or not use Google, Facebook, etc. "Being taken advantage" is subjective. Even if it was generally considered to be "malicious" and "being taken advantage of", you're arbitrarily twisting the rules of the game, to favor one group of people (the "users") and impair others (those that create the service). You may say: Yeah, but those being impaired already have millions of dollars and those being "protected" are good people. So, you decide who is "good people" and whose freedom doesn't matter? Should millionaires have less rights than poor people? Laws should correct for the amount of money/power people have, is that fair? I don't think so.

jrockway 8y ago

I feel like insurance companies are already doing this in a more transparent way: https://www.joinroot.com/ https://www.joinroot.com/ If you want the lower rate, you let them track you with the app. If you don't, you call up Geico or whatever and let them decide based on your age and zip code. Chrome Sync has nothing to do with this.

munk-a 8y ago
I disagree. I think this is indeed a known exchange of your privacy for value, but when people not using the app also find their life insurance rates going up it'll be a different story. I also think all of us are terrible at determining the value of our privacy and it's an asset we don't miss until it's gone. It's for that reason that I think the sale of privacy is something we can't leave up to unregulated industry because not all parties have good information on the goods they are exchanging.

ben_jones 8y ago

You missed the part where the algorithm is written and improperly maintained by underpayed and underqualified developers and routinely spits out wrong answers.