Yahoo Promises To Anonymize and Limit User Data

quarterbuck writes "While Google is saying that personalization is the key to search, Yahoo is taking a different view of the topic. Yahoo announced plans to retain user data for no longer than 90 days and to anonymize data. Even if Yahoo is not your favorite search engine, it is a good move in the direction of online privacy if it will force others to follow suit." Reader Mike adds "Yahoo did say, however, that it will keep some data for up to six months for security and fraud reasons, as part of some 'specific and limited exceptions.'"

Comments

Reverse contracts

[girlintraining]

The problem in IT today is that contracts give companies the power, not the end user. If you want to level the playing field, what we need is for the user to make contracts and exceptions about how their data is used, and then legally enforce it. In short, a user's union. We could design plugins to our browsers to eliminate companies from consideration that do not adhere to our privacy requests -- in effect, blackholing them. Since our private data is considered to have value, we want something back for it -- so we'd organize together to give that data out in exchange for monentary compensation.

that said... It would never work. People don't care to organize to protect their rights. They're quite happy with the current state of affairs.

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[account_deleted]

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