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Data-Mining Ban Struck Down By US Supreme Court

Posted by timothy on from the about-your-nasty-std dept.

smitty777 writes "The Supreme Court struck down in Sorrell vs IMS Health a Vermont law banning data mining which has been in place since 2007. The court ruled that the data on medications prescribed by doctors is protected by the First Amendment and can be used for marketing by the pharmaceutical companies. This follows similar declarations in Maine and New Hampshire."

13 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Big Corporation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Big corporations always win in the end. They have the money to pay the lawyers and the lobbyists. It's their world; we just live in it. This has basically become a country by the corporations for the corporations. One nation, under CEO, with corruption and insider trading for all.

    1. Re:Big Corporation by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This isn't a new phenomenon. In the Middle Ages, Barons and Earls constantly vied with kings for supremacy over the nation. In the early modern era, merchants literally seized control of certain states, and corporations like the East India Company rules territories as vast as India.

      The price of freedom might be eternal vigilance, but the price of control is simply a lot of money.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  2. Long-term damage from the Bush Admin by Nimey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We can expect more and more of this because he replaced two fairly liberal judges with very conservative ones.

    Not that liberal judges are a panacea - they all voted in favor of eminent domain in Kelo v. New London - but they tend to not believe in corporate power so much.

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
    1. Re:Long-term damage from the Bush Admin by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm mostly a conservative, and I don't recognize these rulings as conservative. These are corporatist, which I mostly view as a form of treason.

    2. Re:Long-term damage from the Bush Admin by Hatta · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm mostly a conservative, and I don't recognize these rulings as conservative. These are corporatist

      What's the difference?

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:Long-term damage from the Bush Admin by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, in what way is "corporatist" not a philosophy of "limited scope of the federal government?"

      Corporations are creations of government by definition. They don't exist without government protection.

      Here's a limited government position: governments should not be in the business of creating and protecting corporations. See, that was easy, wasn't it?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    4. Re:Long-term damage from the Bush Admin by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually conservatives by definition seek no change, so at the time of the founding of the US, which all the current rank of conservatives pretend is about them, the conservatives at the time of founding of the US government were of course, Royalists.

      Conservatives do not normally call for a limited scope of Federal Government, in fact conservatives, likes lots of regulations to 'limit' the actions of others, whether those others are exploiting or polluting the shared environment or in others ways seeking to change the shared socio-economic environment. Your are confusing conservative with libertarian and or exploitative.

      The welfare state is about limiting the affects of downturns in the economy (it provides an economic cushion and prevents an economic death spiral) and of course reducing crime brought about by desperation and a lack interest in the shared economy resulting from exclusion from it. Of course the libertarians and the exploitative abhors the welfare state because it prevents the ruthless exploitation of those around them in economic downturns, this with total disregard for the impact upon the shared socio-economic environment, the prime driver being the fulfilling of personal greeds and lusts.

      No matter how loud the current rank of pretend 'conservatives" scream they are religious conservatives, they are not, they are quite simply lying pseudo religious libertarian exploiters.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  3. Of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where individuals and corporations collide, in the US the corporations win.

  4. Supreme Court Decision Disasters keep mounting... by SpryGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This after Citizens United and several other recent decisions...

    Man, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito are three of the worst things to happen to the Supreme Court in recent memory. Ugh.

    --

    - Spryguy
    There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
  5. Re:court made the right decision by Jawnn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the state should not suppress free speech without a good reason. moreover, it is almost always bad policy to regulate the use of information rather than regulate a specific bad action that we want to stop. if the state wanted to prevent pharmaceutical companies from advertising to doctors, it should have tried its luck pass a law to prevent that. http://www.innovationpolicy.org/do-not-track-for-doctors-vs-do-not-track-for

    Really? How the fuck is taking my personal and private health care information and selling it, in any way, "protected speech"?

  6. Strange definition of conservative by Kupfernigk · · Score: 3, Interesting
    In the US today, "Liberal" and "Conservative" seem to have reversed meaning. You would expect a Conservative to say "this (data mining) didn't exist when the Constitution was written, and therefore should come under States Rights. And, anyway, we should be very wary of allowing any part of the community to bring about social changes that may affect the majority in ways we can't yet predict". And you would expect a Liberal - i.e. a free-market, laissez-faire capitalist - to say "if they want to do it let them, and then if it goes wrong someone can sue."

    But in fact "Conservative" now seems to be used to mean "someone who sells the intent of the Constitution to the highest bidder", and "Liberal" means someone who wants the Government not to interfere so much in people's private lives and their privacy - which I imagine the Founding Fathers would be in favor of.

    In the late 80s it was the Democrats - Lloyd Bentsen in particular - that were in bed with Big Oil. Now it's the Republicans. Why the switch?

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  7. Logical conclusion of this by AarghVark · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now that the gloves are off and they can mine data to their hearts content, what is to prevent them from using the data for more than just advertising? I think some people will start seeing letters like this in the future from their insurance companies: "Dear Sir/Madam, due to the number of your relatives receiving (cancer/alzheimers/diabetes/etc) treatment, we are electing to no longer cover you due."

  8. Re:court made the right decision by nedlohs · · Score: 3, Informative

    It isn't your personal and private health care information, the patient stuff is lost in the aggregation, all they want is the prescribing doctor data.

    They don't care about your health information, they want to know things like:

    * Dr Phil is prescribing competing Product X 5 times as often as he prescribes our Product Y.
    * Dr Bill is very well respected by other physicians and prescribes our Product Z a lot.

    Sure, you mightn't like what they do marketing wise with that, but it has exactly nothing to do with your personal and private health care information.