1. The Dark Side of Customer Analytics: By Thomas H. Davenport +Jeanne G. Harris Nicky Pinsker Danielle Haddad Peter Ellen

2. Facts Laura Brickman: Regional Manager west coast operations for IFA (health insurer). Decided to merge info 14 months ago (from publication in 2007). Health insurer IFA and grocery chain ShopSense have formed a partnership. Grocer's analytics chief, Steve Worthington, convinced that ShopSense's customer loyalty card data could be meaningful. ShopSense is known to have best information on customers, and their habits. IFA is known to be the best in the industry at evaluating external sources of data.

3. Facts continued ShopSense is worried customer may not like their info given away. Eventually agreed to give IFA ten years of information on shoppers in Southern Michigan. Found some compelling correlations between purchases of unhealthy products and medical claims. COO Alan Atkins isn't so sure: If customers found out that the store was selling their data, they might stop using their cards, and the company would lose access to vital information CEO Donna Greer agrees, she knows that if things go well, it could mean easy money.

4. Case Facts IFA is trying to take the same approach as progressive, where they find out information, about the specific person and charge them accordingly, IFA is doing this with insurance. Offering insurance plan called Smart choice, a low premium insurance plan offered to IFA customers who don’t indulge in life. Households that buy cashews and bananas quarterly are least likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's. Exchange of information in states with IFA doing business said it was a legal exchange of information. It was quoted that IFA had no interest in revealing customers personal info to anyone outside the company.

5. Opinions We think that IFA and ShopSense’s merge was definitely beneficial for both corporations. Both companies seemed to benefit greatly from this merge due to crucial information exchange. IFA will pay ShopSense a large sum of money in order to get info about its customers and their habits. With this information IFA can better charge certain people monthly premiums in regards to their health and other disabilities.

6. Opinions continued With peoples habits on storage for IFA to look up it can gauge what category of people belong in what monthly premium. ShopSense is worried maybe its business exchange will cause customers to shop elsewhere, but they don’t plan on mentioning it to them. This in our opinion could be a breach of ethics, and if we were shoppers of ShopSense, we could not be happy. The negative aspect of it all could be if the press found out and this led to bad customer satisfaction.