> Why should I be worried if Amazon knows the distance between my couch and coffee table? Isn't our outrage better preserved for when our privacy is truly invaded?
This isn't thinking like a corporation, nor a hacker. This as an APT, information security-wise.
These kinds of grants of access to private data by consumers for monetization purposes are never, ever constrained to one highly-specific type of data. They want you to grant access to a data gathering CHANNEL. Once that channel is opened, any additional data they figure out how to gather falls under the same agreement you consented to before.
Today, it is room data. Tomorrow, it is dust and pollen collection data.
"So what, who cares, they can have measurements of how much dust and pollen is in my home, lol."
Yeah?
Exactly how much have you worked with the data brokering business? If you've been around the block in that part of the industry for any length of time, you quickly realize that it isn't single individual databases where the real bucks are made. It is novel combinations of datasets giving you a plausible explanation to draw inferences from the data.
Go back to the hypothetical dust and pollen measurement. Suppose the GOP loosens the restrictions on risk-pricing medical insurance plans; as long as an insurer can point to a plausible explanation of pricing factors, they can price it however they want above a baseline, but they don't have to make it easy for you to figure that out. Health insurer uses a study [1] to explain how certain levels of dust and pollen are correlated to X% increases in stress-related costs. They purchase the dataset from iRobot. Slap an X% increase onto your premiums, but you are none the wiser on exactly why, and especially where the substantiating data came from, "because it's a trade secret".
The practically non-existent privacy protections for American consumers is essentially a license to steal from them. The best part is you never have to be told who gave what information about you, and when. All this data gathering started out as a sales exercise only because that is the low-hanging fruit. The real prize is absolute control over all the decisions you will make that matter to the owners.
This isn't thinking like a corporation, nor a hacker. This as an APT, information security-wise.
These kinds of grants of access to private data by consumers for monetization purposes are never, ever constrained to one highly-specific type of data. They want you to grant access to a data gathering CHANNEL. Once that channel is opened, any additional data they figure out how to gather falls under the same agreement you consented to before.
Today, it is room data. Tomorrow, it is dust and pollen collection data.
"So what, who cares, they can have measurements of how much dust and pollen is in my home, lol."
Yeah?
Exactly how much have you worked with the data brokering business? If you've been around the block in that part of the industry for any length of time, you quickly realize that it isn't single individual databases where the real bucks are made. It is novel combinations of datasets giving you a plausible explanation to draw inferences from the data.
Go back to the hypothetical dust and pollen measurement. Suppose the GOP loosens the restrictions on risk-pricing medical insurance plans; as long as an insurer can point to a plausible explanation of pricing factors, they can price it however they want above a baseline, but they don't have to make it easy for you to figure that out. Health insurer uses a study [1] to explain how certain levels of dust and pollen are correlated to X% increases in stress-related costs. They purchase the dataset from iRobot. Slap an X% increase onto your premiums, but you are none the wiser on exactly why, and especially where the substantiating data came from, "because it's a trade secret".
The practically non-existent privacy protections for American consumers is essentially a license to steal from them. The best part is you never have to be told who gave what information about you, and when. All this data gathering started out as a sales exercise only because that is the low-hanging fruit. The real prize is absolute control over all the decisions you will make that matter to the owners.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3264048/