The hand that gives freely
is taking somewhere else

Google made a number of announcements that foreshadow its priorities for the remainder of 2008.

To begin with, it finally launched Google Health. Users may import and manage their own health records, then decide which third parties may view it. Google committed to neither sell the data nor serve advertising against it.

The search giant also introduced display ads for Image Search. They will appear alongside image results, the same way text ads appear alongside text search results.

Both Google Health and display ads for Image Search arrive at the same time the company announced plans to open its ad platform to partners in the Google Content Network.

Finally, and not-so-positively, Google is currently under fire for giving authorities in India the personal information of an Orkut user who posted vulgar comments about a politician online.

Google said that while it values user privacy, it must comply with local laws and legal processes. The Orkut user was 22 years old.