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What people think of these programs is often linked to the perception of the product being sold. If a cigarette company did this, people would be pissed. McDona
by AlexandrB 2mo ago
What people think of these programs is often linked to the perception of the product being sold. If a cigarette company did this, people would be pissed. McDonalds is kind of an edge case - everyone knows it's not great for you, but it's not as harmful as cigarettes or drinking so you get mixed takes.
The classic case here is Target inferring that someone was pregnant before her family did[1] - so yeah, this is nothing new.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
- clintonb 2mo agoAltria already does this to some extent. See their Digital Trade Program.
- kjs3 2mo agoWhere it gets "you really should care about this" are things like your insurance carrier using this sort of data (which is for sale to all comers) to, say, increase your premiums under the guise of "your 2 Big Mac a week habit makes you a bigger risk".
- tiahura 2mo agoInsurance is about accurately pricing risk, not subsidizing covert risky behaviors. Why shouldn't they consider your diet?
- RevEng 2mo agoI don't want them to. I'm not giving them that data myself and I don't consent to McDonalds giving them that data either, where that data is something I have to McDonalds. It's about information asymmetry.
- kjs3 2mo agoI would like to assume that people aren't generally so ignorant of how insurance works that they think the risk of eating two big macs a week could be accurately priced in and that insurance companies would not just use the fact of eating a couple to justify an unsupported by actuarial analysis rate increase. Once again, my assumptions of people prove misguided.