infotechia.com

Google Health: First Failure of 2012 - Computerworld Blogs

The idea that users would be willing to transfer personal health record data from health care providers, where data privacy is protected by law, to Google servers, where it is protected by non-binding privacy policies that can change at any time, was flawed from the start. Although Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil,” many users viewed this deal as a Faustian bargain.

This is an interesting, but to me a far too shallow analysis of why Google Health failed. Not to mention far to much reliant of traditional top down analysis assuming that things that are protected by regulations guaranteed by the state is better or more trustworthy than others.

Judging from almost all other situations we are bargaining with our privacy, the key issue isn’t how much privacy is lost (even if we would like to be that way), but what we can gain.

Think of e g Gmail where all your private correspondance is basically sold too Google to gain a brilliant e-mail service.

Or Facebook where your whole private life is bartered for being able to socialize with friends and old class mates.

The argument that Google Health fails because of that people don’t wan’t to use Google to get their hands on your health data just don’t hold true.

I think the main reason for the failure was that Google wasn’t able provide people with a direct and short term emotional benefit from participating. Just think if you, immediately and in a very direct way, could compare your medical data with millions of other people’s data and you could get an analysis on what that might mean for you and your eating or exercising habits? And then connect it to you personal DNA data in order to get an analysis of what category of person you are and connect you to a number of articles you should benefit from reading.

Why not take that one step further and in the next click connect that data to Watson, and “his” extraordinary capacity to scan other data and research articles in order to e g provide a future image of yourself?

Think of it this way: people is always reluctant to give up even small things for a long term and abstract value, but give up a lot here and now to get an immediate benefit that they feel is a real bargain - (unfortunately without thinking at all about the long term consequences).

Source: futuramb