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Google Maps and search will label health clinics that provide abortions
https://www.whatjobs.com/news/usa/us-business-news/google-maps-and-search-will-label-health-clinics-that-provide-abortions
By Nagasunder in US business news, posted August 30, 2022
Google has confirmed it will identify abortion-related healthcare institutions in its maps and search functionalities.
The decision comes after pressure from employees for the company to do more in the aftermath of the highly controversial Supreme Court verdict that reversed Roe v. Wade.
Google owner Alphabet Inc said it has been working on the update for months.
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The searches will rely on information given by a company or authorized data source.
A Google representative said: “We’re now rolling out an update that makes it easier for people to find places that offer the services they’ve searched for, or broaden their results to see more options.”
The business added that under the new labeling scheme, it will add a "Provides abortions" label to locations where such services are accessible.
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The Alphabet Workers Union petitioned CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this month with a request the firm delete search results for crisis pregnancy clinics, which they claimed were deceptive to people seeking abortions.
More than 650 employees signed the petition at the corporation, which had 174,000 full-time employees at the end of June.
The petition also asked the business to stop collecting data on users who were looking for information about abortions.
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Google declined to comment on whether it would stop collecting such search data or delete search results for crisis pregnancy centers.
Google said last month that it will begin automatically erasing trips to abortion clinics from users' location information and make the deletion the default setting.
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If consumers want their abortion clinic location data to be kept in the future, they must enable the function.
Since the Supreme Court's decision in June, privacy groups have been concerned about what the internet titans would do with the massive amounts of data they gather on their customers.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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