Neil: "Yes, it's notable that the Google and HIFA missions are in full alignment: - Google: 'to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful' - HIFA: 'to promote the availabiliy and use of reliable healthcare information'".
Surely Google's real mission is something like "to collect as much free data from its users as possible and sell them to the highest bidder to facilitate targeted advertising, and thus to enrich its shareholders financially." This hardly aligns with HIFA's real misson to "promote the availabiliy and use of reliable healthcare information". Google is one of the largest sources of unrelaible healthcare information in the world. The concern is, of course, that an entity like ours, with 100,000+ participants, might find its data vacuumed up by Google to the detriment of all of us. When you lie down with lions, etc. Any collaboration with Google should be embarked on very carefully indeed!
Best,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
chris@chriszielinski.com
Blogs: http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com
Research publications: http://www.researchgate.net
HIFA Profile: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
