Hey—we've moved. Visit
The Keyword
for all the latest news and stories from Google
Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
How we help track flu trends
12 novembre 2008
This post is the latest in an ongoing
series
about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. - Ed.
Google search isn't just about looking up
football scores
from last weekend or finding a great
hotel
for your next vacation. It can also be used for the public good. Yesterday, we
announced Google Flu Trends
, which uses aggregated search data in an effort to confront the challenge of influenza outbreaks.
By taking
Google Trends
— where you can see snapshots of what's on the public's collective mind — and applying the tool to a public health problem, our engineers found that there was a correlation between flu-related queries and the actual flu. They created a model for near real-time estimates about outbreaks, in the hopes that both health care professionals and the general public would use this tool to better prepare for flu season.
Since we launched yesterday, the response from the medical community has been positive. "The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place," said Dr. Lyn Finelli of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to
The New York Times
. "[T]his could prevent cases of influenza." You can
check out the tool
for yourself.
We couldn't have built this flu detection system without analyzing historical patterns. Because flu season is different every year, just a few months of data wouldn't have done the trick. For example, the 2003-2004 flu season was unusually severe in many regions. The data from that season was especially robust and allowed us to discover a more accurate, reliable set of flu-related terms. To learn more about how we built the system, see this page on
how Flu Trends works
.
Because we're committed to protecting your privacy, we made sure that the searches that we analyze for Google Flu Trends are not drawn from personally-identifiable search histories but rather from an aggregated set of hundreds of billions of searches.
In order to provide a rough geographic breakdown of potential flu outbreaks, we use IP address information from our
server logs
to make a best guess about where queries originate. To protect your privacy, we
anonymize
those IP addresses at nine months. And we don't provide this aggregated, anonymized data to third parties. For more information about the privacy protections for Flu Trends check out our
FAQs
and
privacy policy
.
This is just the first launch in what we hope will be several public service applications of Google Trends in the future. And as we continue to think of ways to use aggregated and anonymized search data in helpful ways, we're also committed to
safeguarding
our users' privacy.
Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel
Etichette
accessibility
41
acquisition
26
ads
131
Africa
19
Android
58
apps
419
April 1
4
Asia
39
books + book search
48
commerce
12
computing history
7
crisis response
33
culture
12
developers
120
diversity
35
doodles
68
education and research
144
entrepreneurs at Google
14
Europe
46
faster web
16
free expression
61
google.org
73
googleplus
50
googlers and culture
202
green
102
Latin America
18
maps and earth
194
mobile
124
online safety
19
open source
19
photos
39
policy and issues
139
politics
71
privacy
66
recruiting and hiring
32
scholarships
31
search
505
search quality
24
search trends
118
security
36
small business
31
user experience and usability
41
youtube and video
140
Archive
2016
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2015
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2014
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2013
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2012
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2011
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2010
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2009
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2008
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2007
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2006
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2005
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
mar
feb
gen
2004
dic
nov
ott
set
ago
lug
giu
mag
apr
Feed
Google
on
Follow @google
Follow
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
Follow
