Buzzfeed is an entertainment website that collects an enormous amount of information about its users. Much of the data comes from traditional Internet tracking, but Buzzfeed also has a lot of fun quizzes, some of which ask very personal questions. One of them – “How Privileged Are You?” – asks about financial details, job stability, recreational activities, and mental health. Over two million people have taken that quiz, not realizing that Buzzfeed saves data from its quizzes.
I read this in Bruce Schneier’s “Data and Goliath” and thought “oh my god, ‘Buzzfeed sells mental health information from privilege quizzes to insurance companies’ would be the most horribly believable 2010s internet thing,” but the source he cited was merely an article (see also here, here) saying that Buzzfeed could conceivably do this (of course they can) but there is no evidence they actually are
Still a weird thing to think about
