Online Insurance Quotes

I have never been one to shop around for lower insurance quotes and so I have resisted changing my auto policy. I currently bundle my cars, house, and sailboat with a single insurance company and have relied on the bundle discount to guarantee I'm paying the lowest price for the best coverage. Lately my wife has suggested we look at other insurance companies to see if we can get a better deal. Monday I pointed my browser at Progressive and entered my information to get a quote.

Not all insurance policies are the same. One has to pay careful attention to the coverage to make sure it is an apples-to-apples comparison between companies. That means making sure the deductibles are the same and coverage limits are as well. With auto insurance you also want to make sure things like rental car and glass coverage matches.

My current auto insurance needs to be renewed in January so I had my coverage in front of me when I put in numbers for the quote. The defaults are significantly less than my current policy and so I spent time adjusting them. As I have multiple cars, I can set deductibles and other parameters for each one. It took a few extra minutes. When I finished entering information, I had a quote for very comparable auto insurance. The quote came in at less than half of what I am currently paying. The savings surprised me and I will be switching automobile insurance companies. Furthermore I will reevaluate my homeowner's and sailboat's policies after the first of the year.

Now for the bad news: you can't do anything on the Internet without being tracked. This means I am getting a lot of ads promoting low-cost insurance. When I go to YouTube, 10% of the videos are on how someone saved a lot of money using different auto insurance. That doesn't include the insurance ads in the videos I do want to watch. I am also seeing ads in random websites I visit. Once I make the change, I don't plan on shopping around for at least a year so I won't be paying attention to those ads. Hopefully they go away soon.

The Internet is a very useful tool that can help us streamline tasks in our lives. Shopping for insurance is one of them. No longer are you required to call a company and provide countless amounts of information before getting a quote. Instead just fill out a series of forms at your leisure and you instantly get a quote. The only downside is the targeted advertising that follows.

Your Smartphone is Telling Everyone Where You Are

This afternoon I read an article from the New York Times about how your mobile phone is collecting where you are and have been. This is something I already knew and have for a long time not allowed apps to know where I am located. I really don't have much to hide but I still find it creepy that services are out there collecting my location on a regular basis.

The article goes through a number of scenarios about how that information could be used for nefarious purposes. Fortunately I don't need to worry about any of them. I am not a secret service agent guarding the president. I am not engaging in illegal activities that might include robbing banks or prostitution. About the only scenario I should be worried about is that someone would be able to tell when I am not at home or on my boat and be able to rob either location. Fortunately I don't have anything expensive on my boat and I doubt there is much in my home that warrants worrying about thieves.

The things I really worry about are exactly why those smartphone applications are collecting the data: advertising. Companies like to be able to track that you have seen an ad and then visited a store to purchase something. Advertisers can also see that you walked into a restaurant and left immediately. That will just open the flood gates to restaurant ads spamming my phone. I am also not interested in ads for stores I just walked by. Imagine walking by a shoe store and then being bombarded with coupons about shoes you don't care about. I just wanted to get to the video game store on the other side.

After reading the article, I double checked my phones and Google account. I have made sure to turn off location notification on all of them. If I need to use a map application, I will turn it back on temporarily and then be sure to turn it off again.

Someone Is Watching

It is nice to see that Microsoft completely changed their mind with respect to being able to play used games on the XBox One. There are rumors circulating as to why this reversal took place, but I don't want to speculate. Their own site says they listened to their users and in my opinion, that is the right thing to do.

One advantage the XBox One has over the PS4 is that it comes bundled with the Kinect. With the PS4, you will have to shell out another $80 or so to get the equivalent feature. Including the Kinect will allow Microsoft to do all sorts of things for all of their users that a large number of PS4 users won't be able to do. For instance, when you are watching TV on your XBox One, the Kinect will be able to count the number of people in the room and be able to distinguish the relative ages of everyone. Think what a benefit that will be to the advertisers paying for commercials during your favorite shows. Whereas they used to have to go through expensive and error-prone services like Nielsen, they will have immediate feedback on their audience.

The XBox One will also always be listening to you. They say it is so it will turn on when it hears you say, "XBox On". However it can also be used to hear things like, "I love this game," or "This game blows." Just think, they will be able to take that information and feed it back to game developers to help them create better content for you to play.

Microsoft is also very concerned about security with their devices and would never let anyone have the ability to write a virus for the XBox that would allow it to listen in on your private conversations or watch what you are doing in the privacy of your own home. After all, their operating systems are known for being the most secure and immune to hacking or viruses. And we were told at launch that the XBox One would be running three different operating systems, one of which was a form of Windows.

Yep, I think these features are really awesome. Just as long as today is opposite day.

Pandora

I flew back to Utah on Friday night with a plane full of skiers. Seated several rows behind me were two buddies headed to Park City for 3 days of fun in the snow. One of them mentioned that he worked for Pandora. The whole plane seemed to explode with the question, "You work for Pandora?" It was as if he was a rock star. Children asked for autographs, women swooned, and men passed out business cards.

The plane was alive with chatter the whole 90-minute flight and I got to hear every word. Everyone wanted to know what the Pandora employee did. He confessed that he wasn't technical but sold advertising. He then proceeded to explain how much information they keep about their listeners. This allows them to target advertising with a laser-like focus. It was a great story for someone interested in promoting products. It was a bit concerning for someone interested in privacy.

So what information does Pandora really keep? First, they know your music interests. While that doesn't give them your exact age, it can give them a pretty good idea. For instance, I don't know a single adult that enjoys Selena Gomez. If that is on your playlist, then they can be sure you are a teenage or tween girl that has been force-fed Disney since birth.

Pandora also keeps track of your IP address, which is geographically specific. That means I must confuse them. Sometimes I am in Utah and other times, I am in California. However, it allows them to target ads for my general listening area. As I am in Utah today, I see ads for older single sites specific to the Salt Lake area. I wonder what that says about my playlist?

The information that Pandora tracks that should really bother you is their ability to go through your browser cookies and see the websites you like to visit. I frequently remove all my cookies for this very reason. While I don't visit questionable websites, I also don't feel comfortable sharing my personal interests with the world. I have a hard enough time not buying skis on a daily basis. Imagine if I was constantly bombarded with advertising about great deals. I don't think my credit cards could survive.