Data Mining Exec Pays For Burgers In Cash To Avoid Insurance Company Snooping

[k]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120619/04094319383/data-mining-exec-pays-burgers-cash-to-keep-his-insurance-company-knowing-his-bad-diet-habits.shtml

Thought this was interesting  and is one of the reasons I think Bitcoin (or something like it) is so vital. I can easily imagine a future where physical cash is more and more rare and nearly all money is digital. If we are not careful we will sleepwalk into a world where every transaction is recorded in some big companies database. Would you like Visa, Facebook or Google knowing where and when you've spent or received every last cent?
The ability to have financial privacy in a digital world is definitely one of Bitcoins best features.

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[niko]

These schemes are houses of cards, and are only effective if they are hidden from public. Sooner or later people learn how it works. When serious money is involved, it's usually sooner than later. Not only that I can buy burgers with cash, but I can purposefully use tracked resources to manipulate the score when needed.

[bitplane]

Only the current parameters of the statistical regression need to be a secret, if people try to game the system they just change the parameters. They're very effective, I bet they can work out the risk factor of people who have no/missing data by comparing them with those who do. It's scary stuff!