About a week ago I posted Google Storing Medical Records and discussed this emerging service. At the time I was concerned that the medical information Google is storing would not be governed by the same HIPAA regulations that ensure the privacy of this data. I was also concerned that Google could sell this data to biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies who would then use it for direct marketing purposes.
One key source of revenue that I completely forgot is ad revenue and now I've just read a post on the Bits blog in the technology section of the New York Times that reminded me of this potential gold mine. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, stated that "at first there would be no ads on the service", but a Google spokesman also stated that "the company may well put ads on future versions of the service".
