Google tells the CDC if you’ve got a cold

We’ve known for quite some time that Google retains your search data and IP address for up to 18 months. Here is the latest example of how that data can be manipulated.

“Google’s new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring.
“What’s exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody — epidemiologists, health officials, moms with sick children — learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on data that’s coming in this week,” said Jeremy Ginsberg, the lead engineer who developed the site.
The tool, which launched Tuesday, operates on the idea that there’s likely to be a flu outbreak in states where flu-related search terms are currently popular.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping validate and refine the model, and has provided flu tracking data over a five-year period, said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC’s influenza division.”

What seems quite the novel idea, to me means yet another example of Google taking advantage of your search data they collect in their databases to improve their moneymakers adsense and adwords. This collaboration is mutually beneficial in a sense that with the CDC’s help Google can now fine tune their ad model to truly understand if the search for a Flu term is by someone whos in a Flu zone therefor more likely to be in need of Flu related products which of course will be prominently displayed alongside your search results. And of course, with this CDC collaboration, the search results will be more accurate therefore those keywords will come at a higher premium.

Dont be fooled by the .org domain, Google is in this for the money and they are using your private data to make their business more efficient.