Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

Re:Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers by treis on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @12:48PM (#24640759)

This argument rests on an undeseriable business practice. Essentially we don't want insurance companies to discriminate on the health of potential buyers so let's stop Google from acquiring that data. But if that's what we want it makes more sense to ban the thing we don't want to happen. Namely, don't allow insurance companies to discriminate on the health of buyers.

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Re:Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers by jjoonathan on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @01:27PM (#24641230)

Health insurance only risk-pools as a side effect of its ignorance. In a high-information world, it risk-smooths but does not risk-pool.

It's completely bonkers that we insist on doing it this way.

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Re:Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers by uoaei on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @02:04PM (#24641641)

There are plenty of cases where plausible deniability allows bad actors to continue to exploit loopholes.

In this case, the health insurance industry could use statistical tricks to counter the allegation that they are discriminating at a significant level.

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Re:Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers by kodah on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @12:58PM (#24640895)

There's also the good old argument that your argument has been used in respect to Google for decades and it has yeilded the exact sort of outcomes this paper is warning against.

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Re:Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers by shadowgovt on Wednesday September 30, 2020 @01:03PM (#24640951)

Can you give an example?

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