The International Herald Tribune reports (story also in the NY Times) on new developments at both Google and Microsoft concerning their health product strategies. The long-rumored Google Health is apparently almost here. (See screenshots at Google Blogoscoped.) Health care-related advertising and marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. and Google and Microsoft are seeking to get a chunk of that spending. There's also high consumer demand for the information. At the same time, however, there are challenging issues surrounding government regulation, as well as issues of consumer trust and privacy that dwarf the current controversy associated with cookie retention.

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