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Google’s philanthropic arm recently announced a new service dubbed “Google Flu Trends.” The system tracks the locations of people searching for flu-related information, such as “flu symptoms,” and reports the results to the Centers for Disease Control. According to Google, this new method of collecting information is “up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems.”
This new way to collect data may revolutionize how the CDC is alerted of, and responds to, disease outbreaks. Google Flu Trends tracks the occurrence of certain search strings, such as “flu symptoms,” and is able to create reports showing flu statistics. Google can also assign an approximate location to each search, providing the means for further statistical analysis. There is a real chance this new tool will be powerful in making predictions about future outbreaks. Earlier this year, the CDC issued a report showing increased influenza outbreaks in some states, but Google’s tool showed the data almost immediately, two weeks before the report. The chief of surveillance at the influenza division of the CDC said the tool can be used “as [an] early warning signal for flu activity.” She also said, “One thing we found last year when we validated this model is it tended to predict surveillance data. The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area.” An animated graph on Google.org’s website supports the claim, showing Google’s data against the CDC’s data – Google’s data was generally two weeks ahead of the CDC reports, and the curves match closely. In fact, as the CDC gets more data from a given time period, the two graphs grow closer together.
If only more companies had broader philanthropy organizations that served the public to an equal degree. I can’t imagine Microsoft just giving away a product like this. Google is known for going beyond its mantra of “Don’t be evil” and making available cutting-edge, extremely useful products for free. Before Google came along, webmail was an inconvenience and it wasn’t unusual to get e-mails returned because a user’s mailbox was full. Gmail revolutionized e-mail by providing lots of storage and an intuitive interface, all for free. Now Google is putting its brains to work on projects that don’t even directly affect it or its bottom line – a thought almost unthinkable in the business world.
There are those who will certainly sputter over what they see as an invasion of privacy by Google, and if it were another company they might be correct. Google has always tracked certain keywords though, and there has been no indication thus far that an improper breach of privacy has been made. No matter what company you’re dealing with, It is always important to keep in mind that there is always the possibility of sensitive information being distributed. I personally will worry more about some sketchy internet company I bought a T-shirt from stealing my credit card number before I worry about Google blabbing my searches all over the internet. For the sake of medicine, and in the name of saving lives, I’ve got to say I couldn’t care less anyway.
William P. Davis is a first-year journalism and violin performance major.
