EU says Google may be violating privacy laws
The European Union's data protection advisory group sent a letter to Google this month asking why the company keeps records of user searches for up to two years. The underlying issue here is whether Google and other search engines are violating users' privacy rights by maintaining search records, even if those records are used to improve the user experience by offering personalized search options. European Union investigators are also looking at the way Yahoo! and Microsoft store data.
Google is well aware that there are privacy concerns associated with its retention of search data, and is taking steps to anonymize data that is kept for more than 18 to 24 months. In other words, for about two years, the company will be able to track a particular user's search results. After that, the data will still be available, but there will be no way to associate it with a specific user.
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eric.james said 7:02PM on 5-25-2007
I can see no reason for Google to ever actually be able to trace a specific search to a specific user. If they did real-time anonymization of the data; specifically replacing the actual IP Address of the user with the geographical information of where it came from but the actual person's IP Address and the complete removal of the user's name and identifying elements. It's like when Target or Toys R Us ask for your full phone number for demographic purposes; they don't need your whole phone number just your area code and exchange (if you use a POTS line) or your zip code. They don't need your phone # or name.
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Mysterius said 1:43PM on 5-26-2007
Google doesn't keep search records for demographic data based on location. Rather, it wants to find patterns among searches by individual users.
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