Google Changing Privacy Policy, 18-24 month retention Options

[swainzy]

Currently, Google maintains the search data logs indefinitely. Under the new policy announced on Wednesday, which Google expects to have fully implemented by the end of the year, the company will anonymize the final eight bits of the IP address and the cookie data after somewhere between 18 months and 24 months, unless legally required to retain the data for longer. The information on specific searches will remain indefinitely, but it will be much harder to tie the searches to specific individuals or computers.

Cnet article

[projectphp]

Cool! After the 9/11 craziness where people were questioned for crazy things, this sort of privacy really is needed.

I must say, the whole idea of data is somethign that web is going to need to consider. i mean, it is fineand dandy to keep data no, but can you imagine google's data in 50, 100 years time? They will need brazillianbites of storage, all for a pretty useless purpose.

Great to see Google clarrify this (and I even like the "unless required by law" caveat, as it puts the preessure back on ye olde government).

[rustybrick]

Right, sourced from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/tak...mprove-our.html

[eKstreme]

Does this mean that your actions now will not be considered for personalization in "just" 1.5-2 years?

To phrase it another way, Google will keep your life data on tap for up to 2 years. I would argue the data goes "stale" and is no longer relevant in a few months. For some, even a few days is too long.

Pierre

This post has been edited by eKstreme: Mar 15 2007, 06:14 AM