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Frédéric Filioux: Consumer Data Analytics May Lead to Wider Income Gap
Excessive tracking will inevitably backfire. Internet-boosted profiling will directly impact users’ daily lives in a broad way. Take insurance or banking. Zillions trackers have determined with a great deal of accuracy that Mr. Smith, living in Kalamazoo, Michigan is: (a) slightly overweight; he tried numerous diets and pills, bought home training equipment, and visits weight-loss forums — anonymously he thinks; (b) he has little debt, but he is in a precarious jobs situation; he often visits jobs post sites; he works in the heavy machinery sector, one that is listed as fragile; (c) he lives alone (Smith is tagged as divorced, with grown-ups kids); (d) then he tends to booze and smoke a bit (all of this known thanks to a look at his daily purchases, courtesy XYZStore where he’s an identified coupon-redeemer), etc, etc.
What fate awaits Mr. Smith? He’ll be struck by an insurance rate hike, and he won’t be eligible for a loan to remodel his house. For him, data gathering translates into a tangible cost.
As for Mrs. Jackson, a lawyer in Northern California, she is in a exactly symmetrical situation with a good job, great health and decent credit. Her insurance company and her bank see her as a low-risk, valuable customer and she will accordingly be pampered with low rates.
The result will be the widening of a data-driven gap between the middle class and the upper crust: Mr. Smith will see his income erode as Mrs. Jackson will become much more relaxed (at least financially speaking).
This little tale is by no mean fiction: a firm such as data-collector Acxiom says it collects 3 billion pieces of information per day on each and everyone one of us.
