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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?

8 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:right.... by ag0ny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would Google have to comply with EU regulations? :?

    Maybe because they do business in Europe?

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    My site
  2. Re:0 months? by cdrudge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My guess is they don't do it immediately is because there is internal business value in mining the data. User patterns, length of stay, etc. After 18 or 24 months, the internal value has dropped significantly as things change quickly. I would have thought that the value would have dropped even quicker then that, say after 6 months or maybe a year.

  3. Re:Uhm by Rakishi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And anonymous proxies do not need to make money or provide much of a service unlike google, logs are very useful for such things.

  4. According to TFA by ReallyEvilCanine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google plan to make it "more anonymous". Like pregnancy, data either ARE anonymous or they ain't. You can't qualify an absolute, and "anonymous" is an absolute condition indicating lack of information.

  5. Re:Uhm by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All they have to do is erase the logs every day or just not keep them. It doesn't "take an effort". Anonymous proxies have been doing this for years.

    I know where you're coming from, but that would kinda fuck with their targetting advertising business model dontcha think?

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  6. Re:It's there servers by solevita · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop googling for "jihad death to american president" if you're worried about getting caught.
    You're correct. The only people that demand privacy are those up to no good. How about I come over to your house later, sit in your bed for a bit, go through your draws and your phone records, take some pictures of you and your friends, ask the neighbours some pressing questions?

    If you've got nothing to hide, you should have no problem with this.
  7. Things That Bit Butts, Part Deux by WED+Fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    List of nifty little phrases that have bitten their speakers in the ass:

    • They will never bomb Berlin
    • Read my lips, no new taxes
    • I did not have sex with that woman
    • Mission accomplished
    • Don't be evil

    Now Google brings us:

    Let's just be less evil, now that we've been caught.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  8. Re:Hash the IP addresses? by santiago · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's 2^32 IP addresses under IPv4. If Google is doing the hashing, then they know the hash function. How long do you think it would take them to brute-force break the hash by hashing every possible IP address and creating a map from the hashed values back to the originals? Express your answer in microseconds.

    (If your solution is to increase the space of inputs by adding a variable salt value, please explain how this allows them to use the resulting hashes for aggregation.)