Microsoft Joins Ask.com, Google in Implementing Privacy Provisions
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Some weeks after the European Commission announced it would begin investigating the data retention policies of search engine providers other than Google, following its decision last month to anonymize its data retention logs after 18 months, Microsoft announced that it will adopt a similar policy.
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Microsoft joins Concordia Project to improve interoperability among identity management systems.
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Google Inc. released free software Thursday that lets people search the Web and their personal computers for information simultaneously.-The Washington Post
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Google calls on governments and business to agree a set of global standards to protect internet privacy.
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Calls it a "public policy dialogue" A week after Privacy International ranked the privacy practices of 23 major web companies and put Google at the very bottom of the list, the Mountain View-based search giant has launched a brand new blog where it will regularly address matters of Internet privacy and other public policy issues, including copyright and trademark protection, online safety for children, content regulation, and patent reform.â¦
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Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group. The group is seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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Blog: The move comes in response to privacy gripes from advocacy groups about the practices companies like Microsoft use to target ads to consumers.
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(InfoWorld) - Search giant Google will propose on Friday that governments and technology companies create a transnational privacy policy to address growing concerns over how personal data is handled across the Internet. Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, will make the proposal at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Strasbourg, France, dealing with the intersection of technology with human rights and ethics. Fleischer's 30-minute presentation will advocate that regulators, international organizations, and private companies increase dialog on privacy issues with a goal to create a unified standard. Google envisions the policy to be a product of self-regulation by companies, improved laws, and possible new ones, according to a Google spokesman based in London. "We donât want to be prescriptive about who does that and what those standards are because it should be a collaborative effort," the spokesman said. Other organizations have already made progress on privacy standards, he said. For example, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) created a nine-pointÂ Privacy FrameworkÂ designed to aid countries without existing policies. However, the framework has been criticized for vagueness and only been partially implemented by APEC members, said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum. E.U. privacy regulations are already more stringent than the APEC's recommendations, which highlights the difficulty in creating a global standard that meets existing regulatory requirements in various geographic areas, he said. "From Google's viewpoint, they can't expect the E.U. and those nations that have higher privacy standards to level down to the APEC standards," Bradshaw said. Google's increasing power in search, Internet commerce and software services hasÂ place its privacy policies under scrutiny. In June, Google said it would delete the data it stores about end-users anonymous in its server logs after 18 months, part of an effort toÂ deflate concerns about privacyÂ raised by a European Union (E.U.) working group composed of data protection officials from 27 countries. Google took a further battering after itÂ acquired DoubleClick, an online advertising company that uses technology to track user trends in order to serve them targeted ads. The technology, also used by many other Internet advertising companies, has raised privacy concerns. A European consumer group, Bureau EuropÃ©en des Unions de Consommateurs asked the European Commission in July as well as other authorities to investigateÂ how the DoubleClick deal would impact consumers. The focus on privacy by governments and individual Internet users has resulted in localized legislation, causing a fragmentation in privacy regulations, Google's spokesman said. That can make it difficult for e-commerce businesses, as an increasing amount of data is routinely crossing international borders through credit card transactions, he said. "We really hope that this sparks a sustained, thoughtful creative debate, he said. Â
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Blog: Ask.com to offer tool that lets people search the web anonymously
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On Saturday, a London-based privacy advocacy group, Privacy International, released the preliminary results of a six-month survey of Internet privacy practices. The organization evaluated 23 Internet companies on several criteria, and assigned each company a color-coded privacy assessment, ranging from green (&quot;privacy-friendly and privacy enhancing&quot;) to black (&quot;comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy&quot;).
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Drawing upon its clout as the Internet's most powerful company, Google Inc. is calling on businesses and regulators throughout the world to set international standards for protecting consumer privacy online and offline.
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Google's privacy and content policies for Google Applications give Google full rights to use your content however the company wants.  Are you nervous?
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Following the example set last week by Ask.com's AskEraser announcement, Microsoft has jouned the push toward greater user privacy protections for search-engine queries. The company will introduce an anonymous-surfing option and a new data-retention policy that will purge identifiable info after 18 months.
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The site tweaks a privacy setting that had revealed personal information from private profiles after a Wired News inquiry, and explains its philosophy on users' privacy. Threat Level talks with chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly.
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U.S. antitrust authorities confirmed on  Tuesday they reached an accord with Microsoft Corp. requiring  the company to modify its Vista operating system in response to  complaints its desktop search function puts Google Inc.   and other potential competitors at a disadvantage.
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Google Inc. is introducing an online business software package designed to make it easier for people in the same organization to share documents and information.
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Just like Ask.com Unable to keep up with Google's market share, the other big search engines are determined to top its privacy policies. Last week, Ask.com announced new software that keeps web searches completely anonymous - a first among major search engines - and now Microsoft and Yahoo! have unveiled their own brand-spanking-new privacy principles.â¦