Filed under: Security, Web services, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!
Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL surveyed on search privacy
CNet surveyed the big four
search companies—Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL—about the information they collect from users, whether
that information is personally identifiable, and so on, and their responses are very
interesting. Google and Yahoo! both replied in an almost brusque manner, and with almost identical responses: Yes,
they record personally identifiable information, yes, they are able provide a list of IP addresses that searched for
certain terms and provide a list of terms searched for by a particular IP, and no, they won't say whether or not they
have done so at the request of an attorney. Microsoft's response was essentially the same, but long and PR-tastic. The
Microsoft rep comes off as grasping for excuses, and even tries to weasel his way out of the IP address question by
saying IP addresses aren't personally identifiable (sure, tell the RIAA that). Finally, as an employee of AOL I found
their answers most interesting and, surprisingly, most satisfactory. While AOL doesn't deny collecting the same data as
the other three, they claim that they would be technically unable as well as unwilling to provide a list of IPs that
requested particular search terms. They can, however, provide a list of terms that a particular IP searched for. Unlike
the others companies, however, users of AOL Search have complete access to that data and can delete records at will or
opt out of data collection entirely. AOL doesn't get perfect marks—opt-in is always preferable to opt-out in my
opinion—but I was pretty impressed with their answers. Still, I'll probably keep using Google. Old habits (and
good search results) die hard. Check out the article for the full list of questions
and the companies' complete responses.[Via Digg]
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