Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, has launched a service to help medical experts and the public track the incidence of influenza across the United States. Google Flu Trends presents a map of current flu activity throughout the nation. Flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year and studies indicate that between 35% and 40% of all visits to the internet are started by people looking for health information. Google is keeping the search terms it uses private, but influenza-like illnesses include symptoms such as fever, muscle aches, and cough; sneezing usually occurs with other viruses such as rhinoviruses. Google Flu Trends uses the search terms people type into the web to work out where influenza is heating up. The new system will be able to keep a day-to-day track on flu activity for a given area. It could therefore be used as an early warning signal for flu activity.

Google, which is not charging for the service, says it will keep individual user data confidential. Whenever there is a build-up in one region, the search engine giant will notify the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the bodies that monitor public health outbreaks.

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