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"capable of harming consumers through personalisation of advertising and increasingly also by enabling targeted product offerings" So this is going to be harmf
by greesil 6y ago
"capable of harming consumers through personalisation of advertising and increasingly also by enabling
targeted product offerings" So this is going to be harmful because some health insurance company is only going to offer ads to people that walk > 10K steps a day?
They aren't showing any harm to consumers at present, just that sometime in the future, maybe, things could be harmful.
- ceejayoz 6y agoSure. It's like the part in the movie when the ax murderer invites the young coed into the dungeon-like basement. It hasn't happened yet, but you know how it's gonna go.
- greesil 6y agoSelling ads is not axe-murderering. But yeah they're gonna sell ads. It's what they do. I'm just hard pressed to explain how serving ads by fitness condition is going to harm the consumer, or why you can't just write a law that says to not do that. I'm serious though, what's the most nefarious thing you could do with that? My imagination is unimaginative.
- momokoko 6y agoWe’ve seen Facebook employment ads already used to specifically target younger people. It’s more about excluding people from advertising as opposed to including. If you think of it from that angle it won’t take too much imagination to see the issues that may arise.
- greesil 6y agoOr deny housing to minorities, or radicalize people prone to extremism, etc. Yeah that's one of the downsides of hyper targeted advertising. Should the acquisition be blocked because it allows better targeting?
- peteradio 6y agoI don't think anyone cares that they are shown ads, thats a pretty disingenuous interpretation, I guess blame it on your imagination. Imagine the advanced fingerprinting currently done, coupled to your intimate vulnerabilities. Woops we didn't mean for that data to escape! Our bad!
- greesil 6y agoDiscriminating when showing ads is literally what the document linked to in this HN post is complaining about.
- jraby3 6y agoIs that all they’ll do? Or will they eventually sell your data to health and life insurance companies?
- t-writescode 6y agoA lot of Fitbits also track heartrate data. Any word on whether they track blood oxygen levels? Some of them also track activity type data, so whether you're claiming to exercise at certain times of the day, along with how long and what kind. That would be very interesting to insurance companies.
- greesil 6y agoTo sell ads?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vlz 6y ago> Any word on whether they track blood oxygen levels? They do. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewwilliams/2020/09/09/fitbit-update-lets-you-quickly-check-your-blood-oxygen-saturation/?sh=22dca3775e76 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewwilliams/2020/09/09/fitbi...
- mattkrause 6y agoSome do, but it's very obvious which ones they are. The sensor emits a fairly bright, reddish light from something that's ordinarily pressed up against your skin.
- bagacrap 6y agoInsurance companies already give discounts for health lifestyles, don't they? Incentivizing preventative health seems not only fair but a net good for society.