It’s been a long time coming and has a ways to go still, but Google Health is on the way.
Google confirmed last week that it is testing this new product (click here for a screen shot) with the Cleveland Clinic, followed by another update on Thursday by Google VP (and total babe, btw) Marissa Mayer:
One of the most exciting and innovative parts of Google Health is our platform strategy. We’re assembling a directory of third-party services that interoperate with Google Health. Right now, this means you’ll be able to automatically import information such as your doctors’ records, your prescription history, and your test results into Google Health in order to easily access and and control your data. Later, this platform strategy will mean that you will be able to interact with services and tools easily, and will be able to do things like schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, and start using new wellness tools.
Meyer assures us that Google is emphasizing privacy, security, and user control in its Health offering. But as Nick Carr points out, Meyer is careful to leave open a future loophole. “We won’t sell or share your data without your explicit permission,” she says (with my emphasis). Hmm.
Google Health is sure to be a useful product, but there is certainly a risk in putting your most private of information in a third party’s hands. When it is released, would you consider using Google Health?
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user j.reed.
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No. Why would you want to multiply the number of people who can access the most intimate details of your life? And why, in the wake of the dismal history of the confluence of corporations, governments, and personal privacy (see, for but the latest example, Yahoo’s recent selling out of Chinese dissidents), would you trust Google to be virtuously dispassionate keepers of so much juicy and potentially valuable information?
I certainly would not trust my health to Google. I had to go to urgent care a few weeks back and my sister, unfortunately, trusted google (maps, that is) with my health. Three defunct (and derelict) urgent cares later, we were quite unhappy/in massive amounts of pain.
Okay, not really the same thing. BUT I haven’t really trusted google since. I feel like if there’s one thing they should be keeping excelent track of it shouldn’t be where the new Starbucks opened and it should be keeping better track of which clinics haven’t existed in 3 or 4 years.
PS. Also, some how the Health Insurance companies will use Google for evil. They use everrrrything for evil.
Once again, the NYT ganks my story ideas without giving me credit!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/can-we-trust-google-with-our-medical-records/
Gah!
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