Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

voxeu.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 156 posts

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#41

Post by shadowgovt »

The argument they're making here is a little subtle, but it tracks.

They're not claiming Google will hand out a user's biometrics to insurance companies or other parties. They're claiming Google will offer biometrically-based signal as an ad discrimination channel.

At that point, they don't have to hand out the data to allow insurance companies to discriminate; insurance companies could set up targeted ads for Cadillac insurance programs on users having XYZ biometrics and those ads only run for users that are showing they're low health risks. So it's soft market discrimination; only the extra-healthy get explicitly told about new insurance plan A, and the self-select group signs up, possibly making A cheaper for the insurer to implement even if they don't do any additional screening.

I think the theory has holes, but it's not nonsense. And it's unclear to me that it demands government regulation (but my bias is American-style law; I don't know how European legal eyes see the story I just laid out).

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#42

Post by meroes »

shadowgovt wrote: post #39
alex_duf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is more that your insurance will become more expensive because you haven't walked enough between the age of 20 and 40, and therefore you're more prone to a heart attack. Or maybe your mortgage is more likely to be denied

How did the mortgage and insurance companies get my private data in my Google account?

google bought the insurance startup

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#43

Post by shadowgovt »

meroes wrote: post #42
shadowgovt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did the mortgage and insurance companies get my private data in my Google account?

google bought the insurance startup

What insurance startup? Are we talking hypotheticals here or concrete action Google is undertaking?

I agree that Google + FitBit + Google owning a health insurance company would be suspect, but I'm unaware of them buying a health insurance company. Certainly, if the concern is government intervention, the intervention should hold off until an insurance startup is actually on the table?

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#44

Post by ocdtrekkie »

actuator wrote: post #36
jolux wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes money from people buying their hardware and services. They don’t make a significant amount of money from selling targeted advertisements. Amazon and Google do.

Maybe that's what Google has been trying to do here with diversifying their revenue sources, similar to what they are attempting to do with GCP. Look at the amount of control they have been adding on Pixel phones on what apps and services can access, even Google's.

The difference is Google doesn't stop monetizing your data when they start selling premium hardware.

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#45

Post by shadowgovt »

rStar wrote: post #35
_dibly wrote: post #23

Is it ignorant of me to wonder if the majority of the issues raised in this piece are either portrayed/worded poorly or just not very compelling? >First, Google has the incentive and ability to favour the adoption of Fitbit over rival wearables on the user side, and to simultaneously undermine the ability of others to offer competing products to insurers and health providers. I guess the argument is that Google buyin…

> Is it ignorant of me to wonder if the majority of the issues raised in this piece are either portrayed/worded poorly or just not very compelling? I think you’re just missing the overarching point that googles position becomes stronger in a nonlinear way when you plug persistently updated pollable health data into what they already have. without resorting to name calling your argument seems to be: “we’re going to he…

It becomes stronger in a nonlinear way, but not in any fashion that American antitrust would block.

European antitrust is a different story, and if the concern that FitBit being a "blessed" device on Android pushes out other biomonitors has teeth, so be it. I personally find that flavor of reasoning too conservative (by that model, GMail bundled with the Android OS is a faux pas because it makes it harder for other email providers to compete), but there are differing theories of what antitrust is for.

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#46

Post by OskarS »

anotherman554 wrote: post #10
jolux wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes money from people buying their hardware and services. They don’t make a significant amount of money from selling targeted advertisements. Amazon and Google do.

Apple will never have "enough" money and will do practically anything do get more money.

You're missing the point. Apple makes money by people buying their products, and Apple sells more products when people trust them. Therefore, they have a strong financial incentive to be trustworthy and at least appear to care about user privacy. The best way to appear to care about user privacy is to actually care about it: they make no money selling private information to 3rd parties, so there's no point in doing it.

Google, on the other hand, makes some money selling stuff to consumers, but they make a lot more money selling your data to whoever wants to buy ads. That's the business they're in.

No one is saying "Apple is inherently good and Google is inherently evil". They're both amoral massive corporations that care about profits above all else. It just happens to be the case that Apple makes more money when they protect user privacy, and Google makes more money when they violate user privacy.

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#47

Post by tehjoker »

shadowgovt wrote: post #41

The argument they're making here is a little subtle, but it tracks. They're not claiming Google will hand out a user's biometrics to insurance companies or other parties. They're claiming Google will offer biometrically-based signal as an ad discrimination channel. At that point, they don't have to hand out the data to allow insurance companies to discriminate; insurance companies could set up targeted ads for Cadill…

When the user clicks on specially targeted ads, they reveal themselves to be part of the group and are individually identifiable.

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#49

Post by shadowgovt »

tehjoker wrote: post #47
shadowgovt wrote: post #41

The argument they're making here is a little subtle, but it tracks. They're not claiming Google will hand out a user's biometrics to insurance companies or other parties. They're claiming Google will offer biometrically-based signal as an ad discrimination channel. At that point, they don't have to hand out the data to allow insurance companies to discriminate; insurance companies could set up targeted ads for Cadill…

When the user clicks on specially targeted ads, they reveal themselves to be part of the group and are individually identifiable.

To a first approximation, yes. There isn't any authentication around following an ad link, so technically anyone could click the ad.

But practically, no; nobody's going to randomly click an ad link someone else handed them for funsies. In the common case, the ad company will be able to do conversions on the target demo (and make strong assumptions about the target demo, even if Google doesn't explicitly leak that data).

Re: Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers

#50

Post by meroes »

shadowgovt wrote: post #43
meroes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google bought the insurance startup

What insurance startup? Are we talking hypotheticals here or concrete action Google is undertaking? I agree that Google + FitBit + Google owning a health insurance company would be suspect, but I'm unaware of them buying a health insurance company. Certainly, if the concern is government intervention, the intervention should hold off until an insurance startup is actually on the table?

Oh totally hypothetical sorry frighten, was just continuing the theme I saw in the previous posts

I do see insurance startups on HN from time to time so I think the idea isn't totally far fetched though

Post reply on HN