Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the shit out of me

Re:Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the ... by dhimes on Saturday April 24, 2010 @08:53AM (#1290791)

I have a recollection of hearing about a "breakthrough" in the health insurance world when some company figured out that there was a substantial correlation between grocery items purchased and health issues. I'm very weak on the details (I think the context of my learning about this was a presentation of a "brilliant executive" who will now share blah blah blah-- oh, by the way, she figured out how to do this for insurance companies). My google-fu is weak, but here is a link that at least makes my fuzzy recollection a little plausible.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/70072_loyal11.asp

This is a pretty serious outcome IMHO.

Edit: HBR article http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/d/5/7d50c016-6e60-4...

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Re:Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the ... by sliverstorm on Saturday April 24, 2010 @09:02PM (#1291893)

Frankly I don't blame insurance companies for looking at as much info about you as they can. The only way they can improve business is by more accurately predicting incidents, which is done by examining more metrics and making better models.

Nobody has a problem with this when it comes to auto insurance; you have a lot of tickets, you get high rates. You have too many tickets, they won't insure you. Why is it so different to give higher rates or refuse coverage to someone who treats their body like crap, when their body is what's being insured?

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Re:Why Facebook will win the Internet & why that scares the ... by dhimes on Tuesday April 27, 2010 @06:53AM (#1297807)

Sorry I'm so late in replying to your comment. The issue here is how the insurance companies obtain that information. I think the analogy would be if auto insurance companies determined their rates using data from your cell phone provider as to how fast and where you drive. And, especially, if they were to do so without your knowledge.

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