Sick? Google shares health searches with govt.

Google has always deserved a little healthy suspicion. Now it may be getting unhealthy.

The company that will never, never share your search information, unless, well, things change, is launching something called Flu Trends.

It is based on the exciting notion that when people come down with the flu, they rush headlong to their laptops and search "flu," "flu symptoms," "thermometer," or "can you pick up germs through kissing people you don't know?"

So the idea that the Google engineers have come up with is to track these aggregate searches so that the government can warn certain regions when the flu is coming their way.

I know that some may swoon at this altruistic inventive. Others might think of it as another small step toward excessively human engineering.

"The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza," Dr. Lyn Finelli of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention told The New York Times.

Indeed. But do any of you experience a very slight flu symptom when you hear the phrase "control measures"?

Google and the CDC have actually been comparing notes. The search company whipped out five years of search data and claims that it correlated with the CDC's own information.

It does seem slightly strange that people don't know to deal with the flu and feel the need to search for more information or some new magical cure. Perhaps this is an example of search dementia--the increasing reliance of all human beings on search instead of their own naturally developed noggins.

She searched for 'flu shots,' and it made her happy.

(Credit: CC RocknRoll Guitar)

Flu Trends is just the first in a long line of projects looking to reap benefits from our aggregate searches.

"I think we are just scratching the surface of what's possible with collective intelligence," MIT professor Thomas W. Malone told the Times.

Indeed. But who will be doing the scratching, and why? How comfortable do we all feel about our supposedly privacy-protected searches being used for ends that might be defined as in the public interest? Who will define what's interesting and what isn't?

What if the government begins to identify areas where people search for "AIDS," for example? What if it concludes that "something needs to be done" in, say, Western Tennessee about AIDS?

Or, what if Google and some official friends decide to further investigate searches like "porn," "anarchy," or "Rudy Giuliani sex change"? And what if the government one day suggests to Google that it has to give up individual search information on any of the subjects on which the two entities have compared notes? You know, in the public interest.

A couple of years ago, Google performed a little pushback back against authority--but the company is making its position more, um, nuanced by the day.

Everyone is for preventing the flu. It's a nasty, snotty nuisance. Like certain children you were forced to sit next to in elementary school. But is everyone for allowing their private searches to be lumped together with the aim of deducing mass information, sometimes of an extremely personal nature?

Let's all search for "invasion of privacy" together, shall we?

[skillingssucks]

Another "reporter" that can't tell the difference between "aggregate" versus personal "information". [rolls eyes]

[hates-fish]

Although this new feature of google is taking the spotlight today there is another feature that I believe deserves more attention: google ad planner, talk about scary, they tell you how many visitors from one website visited another website...

[mattflaschen]

If you'd bothered to read the paper, you would know they're not sharing any individual searches, so none of this information is of an "extremely personal nature". I don't see this program as an invasion of privacy.

[hahsluhar]

Chris Matyszczyk, this is a thoughtlessly written piece. The long-term benefits that Google could provide to healthcare services far outweigh these risks you speak of, which seem to bear no relevance to the topic at hand in the first place. There is, in fact, no invasion of personal privacy here at all. This type of information doesn't cross any ethical boundaries. It's not as if they are prejudicing any community. This isn't akin to, say, Google providing information about how many pornography searches are done in a particular region. That would indeed be worrisome.

Furthermore, you've taken a stereotypical view of the flu as a simple bug. the flu is dangerous. It kills, it kills the elderly, it kills people with lung disease, it kills the immunocompromised and it can even kill healthy people, including children. Such early-warning systems could potentially save thousands of lives annually, as well as provide better services for those who are at risk, e.g. by vaccination.

Give me one good reason why this kind of implementation wouldn't be something, that you, if you were in a government position to use such information to help the community, would say, "no thanks."

[129CBRRider]

My guess is that the CIA put them up to it to track foreign operatives who are infecting major cities with flu virus to slow down the US economy some more...

[MadLyb]

Okay, I agree the article was not well researched or written, but lets just look at the actual service Google is providing and how much value it would bring.

First, most of us don't Google for the flu, because we have loads of experience with it already.

Second, let's say I don't know about the flu, and my mom who lives halfway across the US from me gets it and I Google it. That adds a track for a healthy person...in another part of the US. Or I am a healthy parent Googling for sick child away at college. You get the idea.

So, this 'service' may actually do more harm than good, by providing a false measure of the actual impact. Statistically, the data is a sham with little or no way to vet it.

FInally, the government already has very accurate data (compared to this junk) reported by facilities around the US. Which would you trust? A person just googling, or a medical facility reporting the number of cases they have received. No brainer.

This is little more than a publicity stunt for both parties and I wish the article had focused on this instead of a quasi-privacy issue.

[dleone2003]

What Mr. Matyszczyk is warning of is a trend -- a precedent. The trend over the past eight years has been a waning of our personal liberties and narrowing of the scope of our privacy. BIG GOVERNMENT SEES ALL. Police cameras at traffic intersections, warrantless wiretaps, no-knock searches, ex post facto laws, the list goes on and on. These may seem to us, law abiding citizens, as irrelevant to our way of life. Do not make the mistakes of pre-World War II Germany citizens. They too felt that if they were "Good Germans" that they had nothing to fear from the fascist laws.

The protections in our constitution are a safety net, provided by the founders, to keep the government from ever becoming too strong that it might erode our personal liberties. These protections do not fail overnight. It is a slow and gradual beginning, that increases in veracity and speed, until at full bore, we lose the very foundation of this great nation.

If you think that big business and government cannot conspire to deny you of your privacy and personal liberties, then perhaps the media did not do its job in reporting the fact that the major telecommunication companies voluntarily gave the federal government recording from their land and cell lines without a wiretap -- AND WITHOUT A WARRANT. They conspired together. And Congress protected the telecommunication companies from liability.

Momma always said, "give 'em a inch ... they'll take a mile".

Dominick A. Leone

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

That's funny, Dominick,

My Momma always used to say that too.

It's highly enjoyable to read that some are so confident that no actual personal information will be passed on.

Because Google says so.

Hmm. Well, that's OK then,

Chris

[The_Decider]

It is funny how people blindly trust Google.

This is a company whose entire revenue stream depends on getting as much information about you as possible.

There are way to many complacent morons in this country.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

Yes, The_Decider,

Blind trust is a very good way to put it.


Chris