You joke, but I guarantee there’s a market. Consider health insurance companies that see an opportunity to charge everyone more unless they can prove their good brushing habits via app data.
I think it’s a conspiracy theory. The vast majority of people use manual brushes. Of those who use electric ones, a majority use dumb ones. Of those who use smart ones, some people don’t use the app. Or don’t bother opening the app every time they brush. Those who register probably don’t provide insurance info. The data they collect is basically useless for individual cases, and definitely useless on a bigger scale.
My take is that it’s a gimmick to help sell you more expensive brushes when you are browsing and comparing them.
It’s not about user-led synergy. The personal data market is slurped up by those that already have and are building correlations. Just because a user didn’t report anything to their insurer doesn’t mean an insurer sure as shit isn’t going to want the data if they can link it to the user whatsoever, so long as it will make them more money.
This is hypothetical, of course, but it’s the way the market of data brokers works.
Yeah, my understanding is that companies generate this data and just sell it unprocessed to data harvesting companies who link it with other data they’ve been sold. Companies seeking targeted info can then request data with varying levels of depth.
Like a company may request a list of emails of users who are very good (or bad) about brushing their teeth everyday to target ads at
Tooth brushes are under one euro. Tooth paste is around one euro. Both last like a a couple of months. Floss and inter-dental brushes are a couple of euros.
Not everything is implants and high tech drills, the consumer products to take care of your teeth are cheap as fuck. Unless you volunteer to buy the toothbrush with leds, Bluetooth and timer, but that’s a tech toy, not a dental product.
An over engineered toothbrush is a dental product just as much as a very cheap one and there are for sure greedy people interested in trying to get people to log their brushing data on a corporate cloud and later link together their insurance and their dental habits at some point and there are for sure people willing to pay for detailed brushing data. It’s just the very beginning of it all still. Give it 20 years, your insurance company or dentist will ask you how come you’re not logging your brushing.
Who is interested in that data other than Oral-B and their competitors though? Oral-B isn’t collecting that data to sell to itself, and they certainly wouldn’t want their competition using it
The amount of information that can be inferred, especially when coupled with more data from other “brokers”, is crazy. You might be flagged as a depressed person if you skip brushing some/most days. The time you wake up and go to work might be an indication of your social status, together with how often you replace the head.
You see, they’ll sell this information to your health insurance company, so that your premium will increase if they think you brush too seldom or not thoroughly enough.
Why did you have to login in the first place? What’s an “Oral-B brushing experience”?
It’s the experience of a toothbrush collecting data about your daily routines to sell for profit.
Ah yes, there’s a whole line forming to buy data about teeth brushing, it’s like a gold mine.
You joke, but I guarantee there’s a market. Consider health insurance companies that see an opportunity to charge everyone more unless they can prove their good brushing habits via app data.
I think it’s a conspiracy theory. The vast majority of people use manual brushes. Of those who use electric ones, a majority use dumb ones. Of those who use smart ones, some people don’t use the app. Or don’t bother opening the app every time they brush. Those who register probably don’t provide insurance info. The data they collect is basically useless for individual cases, and definitely useless on a bigger scale.
My take is that it’s a gimmick to help sell you more expensive brushes when you are browsing and comparing them.
It’s not about user-led synergy. The personal data market is slurped up by those that already have and are building correlations. Just because a user didn’t report anything to their insurer doesn’t mean an insurer sure as shit isn’t going to want the data if they can link it to the user whatsoever, so long as it will make them more money.
This is hypothetical, of course, but it’s the way the market of data brokers works.
Yeah, my understanding is that companies generate this data and just sell it unprocessed to data harvesting companies who link it with other data they’ve been sold. Companies seeking targeted info can then request data with varying levels of depth.
Like a company may request a list of emails of users who are very good (or bad) about brushing their teeth everyday to target ads at
Yeah, it’s not like there’s money in dental products… Oh wait.
Tooth brushes are under one euro. Tooth paste is around one euro. Both last like a a couple of months. Floss and inter-dental brushes are a couple of euros.
Not everything is implants and high tech drills, the consumer products to take care of your teeth are cheap as fuck. Unless you volunteer to buy the toothbrush with leds, Bluetooth and timer, but that’s a tech toy, not a dental product.
An over engineered toothbrush is a dental product just as much as a very cheap one and there are for sure greedy people interested in trying to get people to log their brushing data on a corporate cloud and later link together their insurance and their dental habits at some point and there are for sure people willing to pay for detailed brushing data. It’s just the very beginning of it all still. Give it 20 years, your insurance company or dentist will ask you how come you’re not logging your brushing.
I disagree, I’ve heard the same thing about many other things and haven’t seen any of those happen. I guess we’ll see in years?
Have you ever seen how expensive braces are?
That’s not the product that’s expensive, it’s the dentist salary you’re paying (and I don’t thing you are going to buy braces online).
Who is interested in that data other than Oral-B and their competitors though? Oral-B isn’t collecting that data to sell to itself, and they certainly wouldn’t want their competition using it
The amount of information that can be inferred, especially when coupled with more data from other “brokers”, is crazy. You might be flagged as a depressed person if you skip brushing some/most days. The time you wake up and go to work might be an indication of your social status, together with how often you replace the head.
You see, they’ll sell this information to your health insurance company, so that your premium will increase if they think you brush too seldom or not thoroughly enough.
Exactly this, but it will be sold the other way around, you’ll get a gift or a discount if you log+link data
You can use the Oral B with some electric brushes to see where you have brushed and where you haven’t to help you with not missing anything.
You have brushed in New York and Philadelphia this week!
Suspicious activity has been detected in your toothbrush in Hong Kong. Your account has been locked for your security.
Goddammit, Oral-B, I told you I was traveling this week!
sets up VPN to trick it into brushing from home
For brushing in Asia, please upgrade your Oral-B account to the Oral-B premium account for just 5 € / month!
Sorry, not sure what you mean by this (not a native English speaker)
It’s a data collection joke.
“where you have brushed” -> either “where in your mouth” or “where you were when brushing”