CNET Update - Facebook wants to play doctor with your health data
CNET Update - Facebook wants to play doctor with your health data
2014-10-03
Facebook finds a new way to make us sick
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet
update facebook makes money by
collecting data about us and then
selling ads targeting us based on that
data at Facebook actually tracks more
than you may realize a research paper
revealed that Facebook can record every
key you type when writing a message even
if you don't send or post that message
I'm sure you remember a scandal a few
months ago when Facebook was found to be
conducting emotional experiments on
users without consent the network is
only now responding to the issue saying
that it will still experiment but future
research will be reviewed more closely
how comforting it doesn't stop there now
Reuters reports that facebook wants to
collect your health data and the network
is researching ways it can get into the
field of health care some employees are
looking into creating online support
communities that would connect people
suffering with the same illnesses there
would also be preventive care
applications that would help improve our
lifestyles but how far will this go now
if you couldn't tell it ready for my
voice I'm a bit stuffed up and congested
with a cold but I don't need Facebook
filling my feet with a bunch of ads for
cold medicine and sharing that
information with pharmaceutical
companies and I don't need them lumping
me into some database of sick people and
what about more serious conditions like
cancer if Facebook collects our health
status into large databases this could
get dangerous when you start to think
about privacy and how it could influence
health insurance Facebook is mutating
into some man it goes far beyond a
communication tool it's hard to trust
companies with more of our data when
there's a new hack reported every week
JPMorgan Chase revealed that 76 million
households and 7 million small
businesses were compromised in a data
breach that makes it one of the largest
corporate hacks ever reported JPMorgan
the largest bank in the US says the
information breach included customer
names addresses phone numbers and email
addresses but it seems the hackers did
not get account numbers passwords birth
dates or social security numbers so
while hackers keep trying to crack our
bank accounts how about we segue into
news about saving money you know Groupon
as a service for discounts on
Johnson activities but now groupon is
expanding into discounts at the grocery
store Groupons new snap app is sort of
like reverse couponing it tells you
which items have discounts you could buy
them from any store and then you snap a
photo of your receipt after you collect
twenty dollars worth of discounts you
get the money sent to you in a lump sum
like a rebate unfortunately they didn't
have any cold medicine discounts for me
but I can save money on Lisa that's your
tech news update you can get more
details on these stories at cnet com
from our studios in New York I'm Bridget
Carey
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