7 ms·

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

by afpx 3y ago

bobim 3y ago
Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.
- judge2020 3y ago
  They do this without the help of third parties - by offering a hundred+ dollars off your policy every 6 months (or over 6 months) for having their driving habit tracking app enabled at all, more if you actually drive like they want you to.
- gausswho 3y ago
  Which begs the idea: how would one successfully pollute insurance data. I am now a non-smoking vegan ironman.
  - psd1 3y ago
    It's not obvious to me that working out will reduce your car premiums. I can imagine a gym rat being more likely to crash than a saggy middle-ager.
- voidpepe 3y ago
  Insurance companies get these information from more direct sources. For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. And they pay big time for it. I can confirm this at least for one large automotive company that I cannot mention because of legal reasons, but they were founded by one infamous failed artist.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    Doesn't mean they should be allowed to. Or that your car should even be sending that data without your explicit consent.
    - voidpepe 3y ago
      The upcoming Euro 6 standard requires the car manufacturer to collect all data related to emissions. The current wording is so wide that it could also include things like if you have a heater on or how loud is your music because all of those systems consume energy and contribute to the emissions. One can only imagine what is hiding behind these regulations.
    - voidpepe 3y ago
      Also, I'm aware that some car manufacturers are planning to pay users for their consent to collect more data about them from the car. However it's supposed to be a one time payment not worth more than a full tank.
  - anonym29 3y ago
    >For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. This is why I do not, and never will, own a car with telemetry capabilities. I'm happy with my old dumb car. No smart crap for me.
    - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
      That type of car in 20 years will become as rare as one without OBD, sadly
      - voidpepe 3y ago
        And also unusable if you live in a bigger city. Many of those are pushing to ban old cars due to pollution and noise regulations.
        3y ago
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  Bad drivers should pay more for car insurance.
  - tristor 3y ago
    True. The problem is that telematics can’t tell you who is a bad driver and who isn’t. Instead they approximate bad driving by rate of acceleration, brake pressure, and speed. To these systems anyone who drives the way you are taught to drive in any serious course outside high school would be flagged as a bad driver, despite statistically have lower accident rates. The things that actually make people bad drivers are things like driving unpredictability, failing to signal, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and not paying attention / distracted driving. These are the things that cause most crashes. They also can’t be directly measured with telematics and none of the measurements we have is a good proxy. So most folks would agree that bad drivers should pay more for insurance, but it doesn’t follow that sending telematics to insurance companies is a useful or accurate way to do that. It’s certainly not worth the privacy trade off.
    - pnut 3y ago
      Whether due to someone being distracted, under the influence, a crappy driver, or a spirited, trained driver, I'd say someone driving fast and accelerating/decelerating hard is inappropriate behaviour on shared transportation infrastructure, and don't have a problem with the net being cast wide enough to discourage the practice.
      - hansvm 3y ago
        It's too clumsy of a cudgel. The sensors themselves are imperfect, the thing you actually measure is probably the thing easiest to measure rather than actually pushing the tire grip toward its limits, even if you actually measure the right thing (hard acceleration/deceleration) you miss the fact that even an ordinary trip around town is often safer with more acceleration than a naive model would predict (e.g., short on ramps, or just that your speed when close to merging should probably be a bit higher than your intended merge speed in most cars), and actions like hard braking can rightly indicate appropriately slowing down for unexpected construction. Misaligned incentives aren't something to be trifled with (something something Goodhart's Law). Maybe cutting all the hard-braking at every stop sign would be worth it, but if even a few people chose to merge more slowly onto the freeway that would greatly increase accidents and have ripple effects in rush hours and traffic patterns.
duxup 3y ago
Even straight up first party information is an accurate. Amazon thinks I’m a woman despite buying men’s products. Google is convinced I’m a fan of a rival sports team despite obvious information otherwise. I have even told them I don’t want stories about the other team, but they keep popping up. I feel like most places are gathering information enough to somewhat fulfill their goal of getting a profile for advertising or something like that. But it doesn’t seem to be very accurate.
- CapitalistCartr 3y ago
  Auditing a representative sample of their profiles for accuracy would be trivial, and the obvious check. They pointedly choose not to.
- speed_spread 3y ago
  Profiling is not about filtering what you see but about ranking viewership from an advertiser's standpoint. For an ad campaign to succeed, it's allocated budget _has_ to be spent. Targeted advertising gives a higher value to certain eyeballs but if the selected set isn't big enough to spend all the money on, other people will see the ad whether it concerns them or not. And that's actually what happens most of the time.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  I swear the people who works on those algorithms must be sabotaging it - Facebook had decided that I must like clothes and makeup because a significant fraction of my friends group did. Apparently they don't have women as friends. Of course the real issue is that everything sold via ads must be crap, or overpriced. Frequently both.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  Wow. Amazon has always been pretty inept at advertising (most often trying to sell durable goods that I literally just purchased) but that is taking it to a whole other level.
Nextgrid 3y ago
Collecting and processing this information provides paychecks and careers for many people - they aren’t particularly interested in making the tracking actually beneficial to the business, what matters is merely the illusion of it being beneficial so they keep their paycheck.
ant_li0n 3y ago
User data (and the resultant behavioral prediction) is the new gold rush. Even if the data is not immediately useful, it can be stored and used later. There's the (now) old saying, "if the product is free, then you are the product" but that's not entirely accurate. You are the source of raw materials. These materials can then be fed into a model which will predict your behavior. Right now this can be seen simply in the space of funneling content to you, in order to get you to buy things. But companies are not governments and can sell their product to anybody (including governments) in order to predict or direct your behavior.
- numpad0 3y ago
  > "if the product is free, then you are the product" but that's not entirely accurate. You are the source of raw materials. Yup. You're one of suppliers, $freemiumco are middle men, and consumer product companies are consumers. Which means you can raise prices and dilute contents, currently without even issuing a Product Change Notification. That isn't a bad position other than there are quite a few alternative suppliers, only slightly less than everyone thinks there are.
numpad0 3y ago
I think we're all misunderstanding ad relevance. An ad that trick you into buying what you were not intending to is more effective than otherwise. An ad for a MacBook shown to someone dead set on buying one soon, is not effective, and only relevant in end-user perception, not in actuality. Many "irrelevant" ads are probably relevant from that perspective, just we all are not comfortable with the concept of an ad in entirety anyway.
- dylan604 3y ago
  We should not be looking at this from the user's perspective. Relevance isn't meaning relevant to the user. They are relevant to the ads company.
  - Nasrudith 3y ago
    Yes and no. Technically any given advertising campaign doesn't need to be effective, only convince the buyer that it is effective (without engaging in fraud). But relevance is important to the ad companies because they aren't going to pay for you to advertise towards markets they aren't even operating in or planning to. To go reducto ad absurdum, you wouldn't get any ads contracts if you were to start advertising towards inaccessible alternative universes and alien planets when they cannot even buy the products. Even if it gives trillions or quadrillions of ad impressions that could not be any less relevant towards them.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      Again, you're looking at this from the person with an ad. That's not who I'm saying they are relevant. The relevancy is solely on the ad companies, the Googs, Meta, etc of the world.
abwizz 3y ago
lots of datapoints for model training?

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

by afpx 3y ago

What do they even do with this information? The ads they feed me haven’t become more relevant.

Insurance companies are very interested by your workout routine and how you drive your car, so they can adjust their offering specially for you… We can’t get laws banning this soon enough.

judge2020 3y ago
They do this without the help of third parties - by offering a hundred+ dollars off your policy every 6 months (or over 6 months) for having their driving habit tracking app enabled at all, more if you actually drive like they want you to.
gausswho 3y ago
Which begs the idea: how would one successfully pollute insurance data. I am now a non-smoking vegan ironman.
- psd1 3y ago
  It's not obvious to me that working out will reduce your car premiums. I can imagine a gym rat being more likely to crash than a saggy middle-ager.
voidpepe 3y ago
Insurance companies get these information from more direct sources. For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. And they pay big time for it. I can confirm this at least for one large automotive company that I cannot mention because of legal reasons, but they were founded by one infamous failed artist.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  Doesn't mean they should be allowed to. Or that your car should even be sending that data without your explicit consent.
  - voidpepe 3y ago
    The upcoming Euro 6 standard requires the car manufacturer to collect all data related to emissions. The current wording is so wide that it could also include things like if you have a heater on or how loud is your music because all of those systems consume energy and contribute to the emissions. One can only imagine what is hiding behind these regulations.
  - voidpepe 3y ago
    Also, I'm aware that some car manufacturers are planning to pay users for their consent to collect more data about them from the car. However it's supposed to be a one time payment not worth more than a full tank.
- anonym29 3y ago
  >For example how you drive your car is sourced straight from the car manufacturers. This is why I do not, and never will, own a car with telemetry capabilities. I'm happy with my old dumb car. No smart crap for me.
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    That type of car in 20 years will become as rare as one without OBD, sadly
    - voidpepe 3y ago
      And also unusable if you live in a bigger city. Many of those are pushing to ban old cars due to pollution and noise regulations.
      - 3y ago
BurningFrog 3y ago
Bad drivers should pay more for car insurance.
- tristor 3y ago
  True. The problem is that telematics can’t tell you who is a bad driver and who isn’t. Instead they approximate bad driving by rate of acceleration, brake pressure, and speed. To these systems anyone who drives the way you are taught to drive in any serious course outside high school would be flagged as a bad driver, despite statistically have lower accident rates. The things that actually make people bad drivers are things like driving unpredictability, failing to signal, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and not paying attention / distracted driving. These are the things that cause most crashes. They also can’t be directly measured with telematics and none of the measurements we have is a good proxy. So most folks would agree that bad drivers should pay more for insurance, but it doesn’t follow that sending telematics to insurance companies is a useful or accurate way to do that. It’s certainly not worth the privacy trade off.
  - pnut 3y ago
    Whether due to someone being distracted, under the influence, a crappy driver, or a spirited, trained driver, I'd say someone driving fast and accelerating/decelerating hard is inappropriate behaviour on shared transportation infrastructure, and don't have a problem with the net being cast wide enough to discourage the practice.
    - hansvm 3y ago
      It's too clumsy of a cudgel. The sensors themselves are imperfect, the thing you actually measure is probably the thing easiest to measure rather than actually pushing the tire grip toward its limits, even if you actually measure the right thing (hard acceleration/deceleration) you miss the fact that even an ordinary trip around town is often safer with more acceleration than a naive model would predict (e.g., short on ramps, or just that your speed when close to merging should probably be a bit higher than your intended merge speed in most cars), and actions like hard braking can rightly indicate appropriately slowing down for unexpected construction. Misaligned incentives aren't something to be trifled with (something something Goodhart's Law). Maybe cutting all the hard-braking at every stop sign would be worth it, but if even a few people chose to merge more slowly onto the freeway that would greatly increase accidents and have ripple effects in rush hours and traffic patterns.

duxup 3y ago

Even straight up first party information is an accurate. Amazon thinks I’m a woman despite buying men’s products. Google is convinced I’m a fan of a rival sports team despite obvious information otherwise. I have even told them I don’t want stories about the other team, but they keep popping up. I feel like most places are gathering information enough to somewhat fulfill their goal of getting a profile for advertising or something like that. But it doesn’t seem to be very accurate.

CapitalistCartr 3y ago
Auditing a representative sample of their profiles for accuracy would be trivial, and the obvious check. They pointedly choose not to.
speed_spread 3y ago
Profiling is not about filtering what you see but about ranking viewership from an advertiser's standpoint. For an ad campaign to succeed, it's allocated budget _has_ to be spent. Targeted advertising gives a higher value to certain eyeballs but if the selected set isn't big enough to spend all the money on, other people will see the ad whether it concerns them or not. And that's actually what happens most of the time.
tomjen3 3y ago
I swear the people who works on those algorithms must be sabotaging it - Facebook had decided that I must like clothes and makeup because a significant fraction of my friends group did. Apparently they don't have women as friends. Of course the real issue is that everything sold via ads must be crap, or overpriced. Frequently both.
Nasrudith 3y ago
Wow. Amazon has always been pretty inept at advertising (most often trying to sell durable goods that I literally just purchased) but that is taking it to a whole other level.

Nextgrid 3y ago

Collecting and processing this information provides paychecks and careers for many people - they aren’t particularly interested in making the tracking actually beneficial to the business, what matters is merely the illusion of it being beneficial so they keep their paycheck.

ant_li0n 3y ago

User data (and the resultant behavioral prediction) is the new gold rush. Even if the data is not immediately useful, it can be stored and used later. There's the (now) old saying, "if the product is free, then you are the product" but that's not entirely accurate. You are the source of raw materials. These materials can then be fed into a model which will predict your behavior. Right now this can be seen simply in the space of funneling content to you, in order to get you to buy things. But companies are not governments and can sell their product to anybody (including governments) in order to predict or direct your behavior.

numpad0 3y ago
> "if the product is free, then you are the product" but that's not entirely accurate. You are the source of raw materials. Yup. You're one of suppliers, $freemiumco are middle men, and consumer product companies are consumers. Which means you can raise prices and dilute contents, currently without even issuing a Product Change Notification. That isn't a bad position other than there are quite a few alternative suppliers, only slightly less than everyone thinks there are.

numpad0 3y ago

I think we're all misunderstanding ad relevance. An ad that trick you into buying what you were not intending to is more effective than otherwise. An ad for a MacBook shown to someone dead set on buying one soon, is not effective, and only relevant in end-user perception, not in actuality. Many "irrelevant" ads are probably relevant from that perspective, just we all are not comfortable with the concept of an ad in entirety anyway.

dylan604 3y ago
We should not be looking at this from the user's perspective. Relevance isn't meaning relevant to the user. They are relevant to the ads company.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  Yes and no. Technically any given advertising campaign doesn't need to be effective, only convince the buyer that it is effective (without engaging in fraud). But relevance is important to the ad companies because they aren't going to pay for you to advertise towards markets they aren't even operating in or planning to. To go reducto ad absurdum, you wouldn't get any ads contracts if you were to start advertising towards inaccessible alternative universes and alien planets when they cannot even buy the products. Even if it gives trillions or quadrillions of ad impressions that could not be any less relevant towards them.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Again, you're looking at this from the person with an ad. That's not who I'm saying they are relevant. The relevancy is solely on the ad companies, the Googs, Meta, etc of the world.

abwizz 3y ago

lots of datapoints for model training?