Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!pikes!aspen.craycos.com!jrbd
From: jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Lifestyle Information ( was Re: Safeway Stores to Accept Charge Cards)
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.162049.12431@craycos.com>
Date: 11 Apr 91 16:20:49 GMT
References: <9418@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <6750021@hp-vcd.HP.COM>
Organization: Cray Computer Corporation
Lines: 34

After thinking about it for another day (and seeing a newspaper
article that is related), I realized that I DO have some examples of
"lifestyle" information use, loosely speaking:

1.  I bought a CD player a few months ago, using a credit card.  A few
    weeks later, I got two CD club solicitations in the mail.

2.  Last month, I bought some will-preparation software (don't tell my
    health insurance company!)  This week, I got a solicitation for
    some other legal software in the mail.  Again, I used a credit card
    for the purchase, and the solicitation was from a company other than
    the one that made the product I bought (I haven't sent in the
    registration card yet, either).

3.  Finally, and most frightening, there was a story in some newspaper
    this week (it might have been the Tuesday New York Times) about
    a woman who was denied health insurance coverage because she had
    gotten two mammograms done in the past year.  The horrifying aspects
    of this case were that
       a) She got the second one only because the first one was messed
          up for some reason, not because the found anything, and
       b) The insurance company told her that there was no point in applying
          elsewhere, since all of the other companies in her state would
          have the same information, obtained from the same source.
       c) She wasn't being denied coverage because she had an illness, but
          because she had tests done for the illness.

The latter case is a glimpse of the future, I think:  health insurers are
already using unreliable centralized databases with fuzzy criteria
to reject people.  Imagine what they'll do with your grocery-store
info...

I already refuse to give my social security number to insurers and
medical providers.  I may never use credit again, either...