Uncategorized
EU Group Say Web Companies Do Too Little To Protect Users’ Privacy
Your bookshelf is not complete without these books! Check out the Absolutely Must Have Books List
The Wall Street Journal (4/8, B5, 2.06M) reports, “If search-engine providers want to keep the personal search data for longer than six months they will have to be able to demonstrate that it is strictly necessary for the service, the document says. The statement is likely to ruffle feathers in the online-search world, where the biggest players — Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and MSN, a unit of Microsoft Corp. — all retain search data for more than 12 months.”
Anne Broache wrote on the NewsBlog at CNET (4/7), “In a move that seems destined to invite tension with major American search engines, a European Commission advisory body has suggested that those companies delete data collected about their users after six months–a far cry from what most companies currently do.” The Working Party’s suggestions “don’t officially have the force of law yet, but they are expected to be adopted by the EC. The EC already adopted a broader set of data protection laws a decade ago, but this report was meant to address specifically how search engines, including those headquartered outside its borders, fit into that setup.” Broache continued, “Search engines, for their part, have said they need to keep logs of a certain amount of user information in order to improve the quality of search results, keep their services secure from attacks, tailor advertising to their audiences, and help law enforcement officials investigate crimes. But the Working Party cast doubt on several of those reasons, saying they aren’t well-defined enough to justify vast data collection.” She noted that a CNET News.com survey last year suggested Ask.com made the most privacy-protective changes, deleting data about its users within hours. AOL said it deleted data after 13 months, Microsoft said it deleted data after 18 months. In an arguably less privacy-protective step, Yahoo and Google said they ‘partially anonymized’ data after 13 and 18 months, respectively. Many of those providers said they held onto search queries indefinitely.”
