GOOGLE is no longer to store as much personal information on us.
To help it personalise searches and target adverts, Google keeps an indefinite log of all searches and the IP addresses of the users who make them. Those logs will now be made anonymous after 18 to 24 months, making it harder to connect records to individuals, the company said last week.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an important concession, but we hope it鈥檚 just a first step,鈥� says Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco. The move is likely to put pressure on rivals Yahoo and Microsoft to follow suit. Yahoo says it keeps search data for 鈥渁s long as it is useful鈥�. Microsoft says that while it does not link searches to IP addresses, it maintains both indefinitely and can connect the two if instructed to by the courts.
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