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Microsoft To Delete Bing IP Data After 6 Months

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-see-you-anymore dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Bowing to pressure from the EU, Microsoft said it would discard all data collected via its Bing search engine after six months. (Microsoft's announcement contains a timeline for what data gets anonymized or deleted when.) Until now, the software giant has retained the data for 18 months. Over the past two years, however, Internet companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google have made efforts to reduce the amount of time that information is stored. Microsoft's policies will remain the same, but now, the company will delete the IP address and other info after six months. Back in December 2008, Microsoft said it would reduce its retention time to six months, but only if its rivals followed suit. At the time, Yahoo anonymized its data after 13 months, and Google did the same after 9 months. A week later, Yahoo cut that time down to three months, but Google said its decisions are not conditioned on what competitors do."

2 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Privacy by sopssa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After Google's CEO's comments about privacy is only wanted by wrongdoers and their massive influence all over the internet, mobile phones and soon desktop I'm starting to think Bing might be better. Like the summary states, Google says its decisions "aren't conditioned on what competitors do" and they want to do what they want. Seems like they got huge and got piss in their head.

    When credit is due, I have to give it. Bing is done correctly, and Google seems like the falling star it once was. We want privacy - give it to us.

    1. Re:Privacy by olden · · Score: 4, Informative
      According to PCWorld and others, Eric Schmidt said: (my emphasis)

      "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

      Sorry, this does sound to me like one of those despicable and horribly misguided "if you have nothing to hide, why would you want privacy?" line.
      I like Bruce Schneier's answer.