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]