![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More On Open-Source Data
Jul. 28th, 2009 01:57 pmHere's an article about Google Health and privacy. And to be honest, I don't understand what the concern is about here. In this article, they talk about 2 issues. The first is how "creepy" it is that Google Health has a section where you can put your Last Wishes, so your doctor and family are absolutely clear on what they should and shouldn't do when you die. Why is this creepy? We write Last Will And Testaments, don't we? Why shouldn't we want to make sure that as many people as relevantly possible know our last wishes so that no one can take over and trump what we requested?
That's actually a concern of mine. I'm afraid my parents will take over and do something religious or stupid regarding my remains (or worse yet, my not-quite-remains) because I'm not married and I don't have a will. But even if I were married, my parents could still cause trouble if they wanted to (I don't really think they would go against a legal document, but it has been known to happen to other people). Look at poor Maria Schiavo. She and her husband discussed, at length, her last wishes, yet her parents managed to tie her body up for years in legal and political battles, prolonging her and her husband's pain, drawing out the process. Because of her, there is suddenly an intense interest in this country for Living Wills.
But then the article goes on to say that "some people will find this [feature] sinister" and immediately follows it up with the fear that Google will tailor its advertising to you.
Huh?
First of all, Google *does* have to make money somehow. If we're not paying them for all their wonderful services, they have to get funding from somewhere to provide all those wonderful free services. I don't see that as inherenly a bad thing. But good regulation to keep it under control is in order too. The concern here is that "the customer is always right", which, in this case, makes the Customer the Advertiser, not the end-user. And that's a very valid concern, but that's where regulation of policy comes in, where Google's policy does explicitly state that they won't use the data in the Health section to determine medical advertisers when you're trying to search for medical information.
Second, I'm supposed to be upset that Google wants to know what kind of advertising I would want and don't want? I would be THRILLED to have my time no longer wasted for ads for penile enhancements or children's college investments. PLEASE tailor your ads to me and stop wasting my time! And to do it on a personalized basis, not on a demographic bases would be fantastic! That way they won't withold their ads for power tools just because I'm a girl.
No one seemed to have any problems when regular network television offered their programming "for free" because it was paid for by advertisers. Well, OK, some people do have a problem with that, which is why there's Public Access, but PBS is constantly struggling to find funding and remain on the air because too many people feel entitled to free programming and are not willing to pay PBS. And no one has any problems that the advertisers do demographic surveys to make sure that their ads for Sexy Singles are not played during Spongebob, and Super Duper Playdoh isn't advertized during the football game, and feminine hygene products are not advertized during The Man Show. In fact, every time the advertisers guess wrong, even "wrong" by a minority viewpoint, it makes headlines with a lengthy legal battle started by people who wish to be protected from seeing or experiencing anything they don't like or agree with.
But media and entertainment that I don't have to pay for, in exchange for limited advertising and having the advertising content match the content of the media, I think these are Good Things.
I *do* think we ought to be vigilant about making sure that when Google says they will not sell ad space during a medical information search, that's exactly what happens. I think there are reasonable and necessary regulations that ought to be in place. I'm not in favor of a Free Market when it comes to the medical field, for a number of reasons that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aclaro defends much more adequately than I do, so I do not want my medical information to come only from the highest bidder. I am NOT advocating a regulation-free service.
But I AM advocating a switch from a mindset that says we must guard our information so intently that, when it's necessary for someone else to have the information, they can't access it. Unmarried, civil-unioninzed, or only-legally-married-in-some-other-place people face all kinds of difficulties in emergency situations with getting the proper information to those who need to know. A work-around is assigning someone as a Medical Power of Attorney, but you still have to *prove* that, and that could take time that you don't have. And if a parent or biological relative disagrees, they can stop you even if you have total legal rights, or at least they can gum up the works for so long that they might as well have stopped you.
And a doctor who doesn't know something specific about you because your records are being held hostage by another doctor, or your Medical Power of Attorney hasn't arrived yet, can do just as much damage. How many times could death or illness have been prevented if the doctor had a program that kept track of all your medications and warned him when he prescribed something that conflicted with something that person was already taking? How many times could that have been prevented if the pharmacy double checked the patient history for the same reason? My aunt died because, when she fell ill, a doctor prescribed an MRI for her and refused to listen to her half-coherent mumblings that she had some condition that made it inadvisable to have an MRI. Her family didn't know about it and she wasn't coherent enough to make any sense and this was an emergency doctor, not the physician who was responsible for whatever it is she had that conflicted with the MRI. So she had an MRI and she died 24 hours later. That wouldn't have happened if the doctor had a handheld device that had her complete medical records, that when he put in his recommendation for an MRI, the device beeped at him and said "this conflicts with a previous treatment", which is exactly what Google Health does.
And how many people could have avoided being infected with an STD if our society did not discourage the open discussion of sexual history and test results? If we didn't persist in the illusion that it's not "romantic" to discuss these things, or that it takes the "spontaneity" out of the sex (which is a whole other issue that sex is dirty and bad and only justifiable if you're so overwhelmed with passion that you cannot make logical, rational decisions that say you *intend* to have sex and to do it safely), or that learning about your partner's history makes you feel icky because you have "specialness" issues wrapped up in your ranking as sex partner?
These are much bigger problems than whether or not Google will try to show me ads in a sidebar, and are easily solved with more accessible and easily shared data. The policy of denying healthcare to people with pre-existing conditions is a real problem, and that goes along with the issues of Free Market and privitized healthcare that I alluded to earlier and I won't get into now. And that should be addressed, but Google Health and other information databases are not the point at which we should be addressing them. Those problems are much deeper in the system and should be attacked at the source.
Security should always be a concern, but what are you trading for your illusion of security?
That's actually a concern of mine. I'm afraid my parents will take over and do something religious or stupid regarding my remains (or worse yet, my not-quite-remains) because I'm not married and I don't have a will. But even if I were married, my parents could still cause trouble if they wanted to (I don't really think they would go against a legal document, but it has been known to happen to other people). Look at poor Maria Schiavo. She and her husband discussed, at length, her last wishes, yet her parents managed to tie her body up for years in legal and political battles, prolonging her and her husband's pain, drawing out the process. Because of her, there is suddenly an intense interest in this country for Living Wills.
But then the article goes on to say that "some people will find this [feature] sinister" and immediately follows it up with the fear that Google will tailor its advertising to you.
Huh?
First of all, Google *does* have to make money somehow. If we're not paying them for all their wonderful services, they have to get funding from somewhere to provide all those wonderful free services. I don't see that as inherenly a bad thing. But good regulation to keep it under control is in order too. The concern here is that "the customer is always right", which, in this case, makes the Customer the Advertiser, not the end-user. And that's a very valid concern, but that's where regulation of policy comes in, where Google's policy does explicitly state that they won't use the data in the Health section to determine medical advertisers when you're trying to search for medical information.
Second, I'm supposed to be upset that Google wants to know what kind of advertising I would want and don't want? I would be THRILLED to have my time no longer wasted for ads for penile enhancements or children's college investments. PLEASE tailor your ads to me and stop wasting my time! And to do it on a personalized basis, not on a demographic bases would be fantastic! That way they won't withold their ads for power tools just because I'm a girl.
No one seemed to have any problems when regular network television offered their programming "for free" because it was paid for by advertisers. Well, OK, some people do have a problem with that, which is why there's Public Access, but PBS is constantly struggling to find funding and remain on the air because too many people feel entitled to free programming and are not willing to pay PBS. And no one has any problems that the advertisers do demographic surveys to make sure that their ads for Sexy Singles are not played during Spongebob, and Super Duper Playdoh isn't advertized during the football game, and feminine hygene products are not advertized during The Man Show. In fact, every time the advertisers guess wrong, even "wrong" by a minority viewpoint, it makes headlines with a lengthy legal battle started by people who wish to be protected from seeing or experiencing anything they don't like or agree with.
But media and entertainment that I don't have to pay for, in exchange for limited advertising and having the advertising content match the content of the media, I think these are Good Things.
I *do* think we ought to be vigilant about making sure that when Google says they will not sell ad space during a medical information search, that's exactly what happens. I think there are reasonable and necessary regulations that ought to be in place. I'm not in favor of a Free Market when it comes to the medical field, for a number of reasons that
aclaro defends much more adequately than I do, so I do not want my medical information to come only from the highest bidder. I am NOT advocating a regulation-free service.But I AM advocating a switch from a mindset that says we must guard our information so intently that, when it's necessary for someone else to have the information, they can't access it. Unmarried, civil-unioninzed, or only-legally-married-in-some-other-place people face all kinds of difficulties in emergency situations with getting the proper information to those who need to know. A work-around is assigning someone as a Medical Power of Attorney, but you still have to *prove* that, and that could take time that you don't have. And if a parent or biological relative disagrees, they can stop you even if you have total legal rights, or at least they can gum up the works for so long that they might as well have stopped you.
And a doctor who doesn't know something specific about you because your records are being held hostage by another doctor, or your Medical Power of Attorney hasn't arrived yet, can do just as much damage. How many times could death or illness have been prevented if the doctor had a program that kept track of all your medications and warned him when he prescribed something that conflicted with something that person was already taking? How many times could that have been prevented if the pharmacy double checked the patient history for the same reason? My aunt died because, when she fell ill, a doctor prescribed an MRI for her and refused to listen to her half-coherent mumblings that she had some condition that made it inadvisable to have an MRI. Her family didn't know about it and she wasn't coherent enough to make any sense and this was an emergency doctor, not the physician who was responsible for whatever it is she had that conflicted with the MRI. So she had an MRI and she died 24 hours later. That wouldn't have happened if the doctor had a handheld device that had her complete medical records, that when he put in his recommendation for an MRI, the device beeped at him and said "this conflicts with a previous treatment", which is exactly what Google Health does.
And how many people could have avoided being infected with an STD if our society did not discourage the open discussion of sexual history and test results? If we didn't persist in the illusion that it's not "romantic" to discuss these things, or that it takes the "spontaneity" out of the sex (which is a whole other issue that sex is dirty and bad and only justifiable if you're so overwhelmed with passion that you cannot make logical, rational decisions that say you *intend* to have sex and to do it safely), or that learning about your partner's history makes you feel icky because you have "specialness" issues wrapped up in your ranking as sex partner?
These are much bigger problems than whether or not Google will try to show me ads in a sidebar, and are easily solved with more accessible and easily shared data. The policy of denying healthcare to people with pre-existing conditions is a real problem, and that goes along with the issues of Free Market and privitized healthcare that I alluded to earlier and I won't get into now. And that should be addressed, but Google Health and other information databases are not the point at which we should be addressing them. Those problems are much deeper in the system and should be attacked at the source.
Security should always be a concern, but what are you trading for your illusion of security?
Tell-a-friend!
