"We will keep you informed without a prescription" - a comment
Jens Richter is editor-in-chief at Since July 2020, the doctor and journalist has also been responsible as COO for business operations and the strategic development of
More posts by Jens Richter All content is checked by medical journalists.
A deal between Health Minister Spahn and the Internet search service Google has catapulted Spahn's new health portal into first place in the search results. Bad news for internet users seeking advice. Because in many places Spahn's health pages, which were rammed out of the ground in record time, are neither complete nor are they free from the suspicion that politically sensitive topics are simply excluded or presented one-sided, says editor-in-chief Jens Richter.
It's not that easy to find trustworthy health information on the Internet, is it? I assume Google sent you to us, to your “NetDoctor”. In any case, that's the way around 85 percent of our readers find us. Fortunately - and I would like to say: rightly so!
You may think what you want of this Internet giant Google: But he's now pretty good at always finding the best answer to your question. An answer that will help you and that you can rely on. Not just in questions about your health. But trustworthiness is of course particularly important.
Google's great promise of quality
Quite full-bodied, Google even claims to be able to accurately distinguish “right” from “wrong” in medical questions. One promises to expose "fake news" and the amalgamation of advertising or even political messages with medical content and to devalue the ranking of the search results.
So all that with which you as a person and patient are to be duped, Google wants to punish with bad rankings. So that you can make informed decisions that fit your life.
State health information - on prescription from the minister
The prerequisite for good decisions is not only the quality of the information, but also its diversity. Because there is not just one truth in medicine either. That is why Google promises - and is also obliged to - to treat all information offers according to the same standards and to make the best in each case best visible in the search results.
But Google has now broken this promise: It has signed a pact with the Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, to ensure that his state health portal always appears at the top of the search results - regardless of whether its content is actually better than from offers such as, which have been developed for you over decades by medical and digital experts. What you get now is state health information ordered by the minister.
Quick shot with large gaps
But Spahn's health portal was literally built out of the ground in less than two years with the support of a Berlin agency. And despite millions of taxpayers' money, it is still a very modest litter: the most important thing is in it, but above all a lot is not: care emergency? Nothing. The worried questions from vaccine skeptics? Unheard. Bottlenecks in the supply of medicines? Not an issue, because a lot was missed by Spahn's ministry. And so forth …
Naive alliance with the monopoly
Yes, the Minister of Health may be right: there are few areas of our lives where trustworthy information is as important as health. But the claim that state information is the best answer shows a very questionable understanding of the role of free media in a free society. And of unbelievable naivety towards the search engine monopoly Google, who in the end wants one thing above all else: to earn even more money.
For this purpose, Google has draped a whole bunch of advertisements around Spahn's health information cards, which should already secure tens of millions of euros in advertising sales every year. And with every click you make there, there are more.
Or you make the effort and scroll down a little. In the variety of publishers. To and the other media offerings, which continue to work hard to offer you the best information - without any ministerial prescription.
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