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Google To Track Flu Searches and Report Them to Feds?:
The Volokh Conspiracy —
This report at Drudge strikes me as pretty creepy: GOOGLE will launch a new tool that will help U.S. federal officials "track sickness". "Flu Trends" uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time. GOOGLE claims it would keep individual user data confidential: "GOOGLE FLU TRENDS can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week." It's legal for Google to do ...
Following Influenza: Google Reports Flu Searches To Feds
Pat Dollard | Young Americans —
Dude…think of the possibilities.
Yeah. Spooky is right.
From Drudge:
GOOGLE will launch a new tool that will help federal officials “track sickness”.
“Flu Trends” uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time!
GOOGLE, continuing to work closely with government, claims it would keep individual user data confidential: “GOOGLE FLU TRENDS can never be ...
"But do we want Google establishing such a cozy relationship with the federal government?"
Althouse —
Orin Kerr doesn't. But the government is attempting to perceive the pattern of flu outbreaks. Do you know how many people could die in a new flu pandemic? Maybe 7 million. Maybe 100 million. If Google can see it before it happens, don't you want that information to be used? ...
Google to share data on “flu” searches with feds
Hot Air » Top Picks —
... In which I destroy my libertarian cred forever by asking why this should be a big deal. First, they’re not sharing individual users’ IP info, just the aggregate data to help the government track outbreaks epidemiologically — which their ...
