Google/Fitbit will monetise health data and harm consumers
The argument they&#x27;re making here is a little subtle, but it tracks.<p>They&#x27;re not claiming Google will hand out a user&#x27;s biometrics to insurance companies or other parties. They&#x27;re claiming Google will offer biometrically-based signal as an ad discrimination channel.<p>At that point, they don&#x27;t <i>have</i> 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&#x27;re low health risks. So it&#x27;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&#x27;t do any additional screening.<p>I think the theory has holes, but it&#x27;s not nonsense. And it&#x27;s unclear to me that it demands government regulation (but my bias is American-style law; I don&#x27;t know how European legal eyes see the story I just laid out).