Facebook put the kibosh on a planned application from U.K. insurance firm Admiral that would have determined auto insurance premiums based on information gathered from customers? posts on the social network.
The insurance company billed its firstcarquote service as ?insurance for the digital generation,? saying on its website:
firstcarquote is a new insurance service created by Admiral to help people who are buying or driving their first car. As well as helping new drivers get cheaper car insurance, firstcarquote can help drivers who haven’t bought a car yet figure out which make and model will be cheapest for them to insure.
New drivers are often quoted much higher insurance premiums as they have little driving history, zero no claims bonus and are viewed as “high-risk.? But we want to help make sure safe drivers aren’t penalized and get the best price possible. Admiral?s plan for firstcarquote had been to prompt users to grant it access to their data on the social network via Facebook Login, and then use an algorithm to determine their safe driving potential and base their premiums on that information, but that plan has apparently been scrapped.
In the frequently asked questions section of the firstcarquote, a revised description now appears:
I heard that your algorithm would scan my posts and page likes to assess whether I?ll be a safe driver, and give me a larger discount based on that analysis. A previous version of firstcarquote allowed you to shar...