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Google to Anonymize Users' Search Data

Posted by samzenpus on from the poof-you're-gone dept.

Google's official blog states they are on an effort to anonymize their search data after 18-24 months. After previously fighting turning over search data to the feds, it looks like they are striking another blow to the "think of the children" crowd. Any bets on whether MSN or Yahoo! will follow suit?

2 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mine already is by solevita · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ignore that post above - I'm a moron. I meant to say CustomizeGoogle Firefox plugin .Get it here.

    I guess that's what happens when you Slashdot before caffeine. I'm sorry.

  2. Re:right.... by skrolle2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do? uri=CELEX:32006L0024:EN:NOT

    The data retention directive only applies to ISPs, and only deals with who you "communicate" with. It does not explicitly say that a record of which websites you visit should be retained, and it explicitly says that the content of the communication must not be retained.

    However, as for all EU directives, it only contains the baseline of regulation. Directives are never law themselves, but have to be implemented in each respective member state by each respective legislative body. These, in turn, are free to implement whatever they want ABOVE the baseline, so some member states may have longer retention periods for this data, some member states may require ISPs to retain additional data.

    The deadline for this directive is September this year, but if you read it, a few member states have reserved the option to postpone parts of the directive, typically of the internet-related traffic. This basically means that they recognize the difficulties in implementing it, and want more time to think about on how to do it, or possibly obstruct it.

    What all of this boils down to is that maybe, sometime in the future, if you have an European ISP, they may be required to store all the URLs that you access. Google search data is transmitted as querystring parameters that are part of the URL, which means that your search data may be stored by your ISP, in a non-anonymized way. There's nothing in this possible future that Google has to comply with, as long as they are not an European ISP.