Is Google Health healthy?

Google has announced its long promised Google Health service, which stores your medical and drug records on Google servers. You get to set your own userid and password, and Google makes a big deal about the high level of security on their servers. But I don't think the biggest privacy concern is from hackers--I think Google CAN keep the servers secure.

What I worry about is Google simply nosing through everyone's health records, looking for data that can be sold, repackaged, or re-purposed for advertisers. Yes, the company has a security and privacy policy, but they are also free to change it anytime they like, after many of us have given them all our health information. The service is not bound by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules, which would require Google to notify you, if for example, someone or some entity tried to subpoena your health records. "Free health record storage," however convenient it may be, is not free; the price one pays is giving up more privacy.

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