OUTsurance in South Africa is a very innovative insurance company, despite (because of?) being a fairly new company. One thing I recently heard of was a program where they install a device in your car that tracks you via GPS, the data is assessed for driver behavior and then you may be given lower rates based on that assessment. You can also log in to the website to see the records of your activity. Here’s details of the plan in this link to the company’s website. It appears that it’s firstly designed for people who drive less often, versus the average driver:

In fact, Safe_Driver@OUT is perfect for those of us who’d rather leave 5 minutes earlier for a meeting than driving recklessly and aggressively through traffic.

Safe_Driver@OUT has been designed for people who typically:
• drive less than 15,000 km per year;
• keep within the speed limit;
• do not drive through corners at excessive speeds;
• do not accelerate harshly;
• do not brake harshly; and
• do not often travel at night.

They are very upfront about tracking you, here’s how that is described:

We track your every move

Your driving behaviour is closely monitored by means of a Tracker Skytrax device that is fitted to your vehicle. This device will provide detailed reports on the position, speed and acceleration of your vehicle which will help us to accurately determine your premium.

At the end of every month, OUTsurance will e-mail you a record of your driving behaviour. You will also be able to log onto our website to view this. This data will only be available 30 days after the installation of the device.

As a sophisticated tracking device is fitted to your car to collect the required information, this product will not suit people who disconnect the battery when the vehicle is not in use.

As you can see, Safe_Driver@OUT goes far beyond just measuring how FAR you drive. We look at HOW you drive and use this data to scientifically calculate your insurance premium.

I don’t think it will be long before these types of things make it to the United States, and insurance will certainly be the first area where user behavior is monitored and the cost-benefit tradeoff is offered to users. Soon enough, not using these kinds of devices and programs will be the exception and rates will go sky-high for those that don’t. I’ve mentioned this before but I think that eventually governments will give out mobile devices for free and require you to use the freebie versions at least, or your own fully-compatible device to access local services like paying for parking. The parking meters (for example) will not only become dumber, they will disappear — policing will be in the cloud, with a simple sensor knowing that a vehicle is there and ID’ing it, and the user connected to that vehicle automatically getting dinged if they haven’t paid up for their parking, or have overstayed their welcome. Goodbye chalk marks on tires.

I saw an AdMob ad for an “X-Ray Scan” in the Viigo application, which reminded me of the x-ray glasses you would see advertised in comic books along with Sea Monkeys and what-not (living outside of the US as a kid, I was always intrigued by these products yet they were also out of my reach – ironically exactly the point here as we’ll see), and so I “thumbwheeled” on the ad.

It was for mobile wallpaper that looks like an x-ray scan. And of course, I can get lots of other fun wallpapers and ringtones for “just 9.99/mo”. Remember to remove the $ sign, I’m sure, it’s not by accident. I clicked on the terms link. Very  sparse, almost non-existent. About – was blank except for a graphic that has the name 28282 on it and very little else. How did I know it was running via AdMob? The title of the page in my browser is “X Ray AdMob”. I have no doubt that these ads are making a whole heckuva lot of money for these guys.

I decided to find out more about 28282 and did a search for them online. I found the Club 28282 page on Class Action Connect and it was quite sad. Lots of posts from parents, kids, people thinking that by complaining on this board someone was going to help them because they were unable to stop the services and/or the SMS spam that accompanied it. One person had over $500 of charges racked up by their 11-year old. Etc. Etc. Read some of the comments. Go on.

What was crazy though, was that I first read this page on my browser, with no ads to speak of, but when I looked again online in a full browser, this is what I saw:

Ringtones ripoff ads

Unreal – Google contextually targeting ringtones and basically pouring salt into the wounds of anyone visiting here by displaying similar ads for the very services people are here to complain about. This stuff is toxic, but the carriers make a lot of money out it and it appears as if they are okay letting the cycle of bad experience – complaint – chargeback go on. I heard a story recently (perhaps apocryphal? sounds very plausible though) of someone who was a big hero back in the day at MCI Worldcom since they figured out a regulation/legal loophole to add a $1 “service fee” onto every customer’s bill. If you called in they would automatically remove it but it was a quick way for them to make millions of extra dollars.

Forget about the ads it runs, for Google, becoming a mobile phone hardware company will give them all the customer service headaches they could ever want. Couldn’t imagine being a phone carrier. Good luck.