Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Ready To Get Into Healthcare
New submitter Ted_Margaris_Chicago sends a report from Reuters indicating Facebook will be adding healthcare features to their social network.
The company is exploring creating online "support communities" that would connect Facebook users suffering from various ailments. A small team is also considering new "preventative care" applications that would help people improve their lifestyles. In recent months, the sources said, the social networking giant has been holding meetings with medical industry experts and entrepreneurs, and is setting up a research and development unit to test new health apps. Facebook is still in the idea-gathering stage, the people said.
The article notes two reasons in particular that spurred Facebook to this course of action. First, the day that Facebook let people share their organ donor status, the U.S. saw a 21-fold increase in people registering to be organ donors. Second, they noticed users with chronic conditions had a tendency to search Facebook for advice.
...keep the comments section on Esquire's Politics Blog working, no way I trust them with anything regarding health and medicine.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Hmm..exactly where are you talking about?
I don't know of any laws in the US that forbids the insurance companies from using information from any source, especially if it is voluntarily dispersed by the individual??
I have to imagine if you're wanting life insurance, this will be one of the first wells the insurance companies go to mine for info....I would.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Kind of like getting political advice on /.
I can't possibly envision ever making Facebook privy to ANY health issues whatsoever. They would gladly shill that information out for profit - undoubtibly why they're doing it. With something such as health issues which are so confidential, making Facebook privy to any of this would be absolutely terrible.
I have to imagine if you're wanting life insurance, this will be one of the first wells the insurance companies go to mine for info....I would.
Why the hell this isn't modded up is beyond me. You're absolutely correct in exposing, yet another, reason that displaying every little thing about yourself on a public message board is silly. I guess it's moronic to still beat the "stop using facebook" drum, but if you wouldn't go up to some random person on the street and tell them some bits of info about youself, regardless how in-depth, then don't post it on facebook. It's coming to the point that - just like when you are under arrest, the first thing the policeman will tell you is that you have the right to remain silent, if you refuse that right, everything you say can, and will be used against you in court - we need to think in terms of things that we say, on public boards, will be used against us. Maybe not in court, but surely the more data there is on each individual, the more these big-ass corporations can use that data in their favor. PS your privacy doesn't make anyone money, so it's not in their favor.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Facebook don't give a monkey's toss about anyone. They are not trying to engender valid discussions. They are going to monetise this. Full stop. For-profit companies do nothing -- nothing -- in the best interests of their users. This is about dissemination of data. Period. I trust no organisation for which the first charter is profit. Facebook has proven over and over again they are not to be trusted. They change their privacy settings on a whim, breaking existing settings, adding new ones that don't default to on. No, thank you.
Marketers hate me and my kind. I have no social profiles, no online presence at all. Google me and find nothing. I have cultivated this because I believe in due time there will be a fallout from the lack of privacy.