Microsoft curtails how long it stores Web searches
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Sunday the software maker was taking new steps to protect  consumer privacy in the areas of Web search and online  advertising and called on the Internet industry to support it.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is removing the beta, or test, tag from Live Search, its next-generation search engine, and making it the underlying search tool at its MSN.com portal. The move comes as Microsoft anxious attempts to gain traction in the search engine market, where it remains a distant third behind leader Google and Yahoo. Because search engine-based advertising is a fast-growing, multibillion-dollar business, Microsoft has invested heavily in improving its search tools and accompanying ad network. But it has failed to make a dent in Google's dominance. In June, Google nabbed 45 percent of all search engine queries in the U.S., while Yahoo got 29 percent and Microsoft 13 percent, according to comScore Networks. This represents a market share reduction for Microsoft of almost 3 percentage points from June 2005. The enhancements in Live Search are notable but many of them are available from other providers, so they aren't likely to boost Microsoft's market share in any significant way, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "Microsoft has to exceed Google's capabilities, not just match them," Sterling said. "Search engine usage is fairly habitual right now. Microsoft has to come up with dramatic innovations and create an obviously better search experience. That's difficult given the fierce competition." From Tuesday to Thursday, Microsoft will replace the current MSN Search engine on MSN.com with Live Search, which features a revamped image search service, an improved local search, a redesigned user interface and new tools to refine query results, said Derrick Connell, general manager of the Microsoft search business unit. The change will take place progressively on different MSN host servers. When users run a search on MSN.com, they will be taken to a Live Search results page on the Live.com domain, but there will be links there to guide users back to the MSN.com portal, he said. Live SearchÂ went into public beta testingÂ in March at Live.com, the home page of the Live-branded initiative Microsoft launched last year to boost its software-as-a-service offerings. Live.com is also exiting its beta status this week. Among the enhancements in Live Search are new options to view full-size photos in image search results and an increased number of "bird's eye" aerial images in local search, which is shedding its beta label in its U.S. and the U.K. services. Live Search also features a new social search service called QnA, in which users can pose questions and have others chime in with answers. Yahoo, Google and others have similar question-and-answer search services.
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Revamped search engine allows users to store and share results.
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After months of speculation and two 'preview' releases, Microsoft has taken the wraps off of its new MSN search engine, the first major competitor to join the big leagues of web search in nearly a year.
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Documents released today detail changes Microsoft will make to its desktop search and indexing feature in Windows Vista.
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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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Top search engines from Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask say they will store less data about users and delete it sooner.
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Desktop Search from AOL, Google &#038; Others  Search engines, portals and browser systems are trying to get off of the Internet and your desktop and into your hard drives, email, and private files. By taking advantage of a basically lame Windows Search tool used by Microsoft since the dawn of MS ...
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Will keep your data for 18 months Google is cutting back the time it holds user-identifying data - a little. But will this be enough to placate privacy advocates?â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Search portal Ask.com plans to make it easier for Web searchers to cover their tracks. The company is introducing a new feature to its Web portal later this year called AskEraser, which will let users perform anonymous searches. When AskEraser is turned on, the Web site will not retain the data it typically stores during a search, said Patrick Crisp, an Ask.com spokesman. "We will allow users to select a privacy setting that says 'I do not want you to retain my data at all,'" he said. If AskEraser is not turned on, the site will store the search query, the IP (Internet Protocol) address and some cookie information from the user, as well as the URL the user visited before coming to Ask.com, Crisp said. Search engines like Ask.com say that they retain this sort of information in order to improve their sites, but this practice has become controversial, with privacy advocates worrying that the data could be leaked or misused. Last year, AOL researchers inadvertently disclosed data on about 650,000 of searches made on the company's Web site. New York Times reporters were able to track down one of the searchers, based on the information contained in the AOL database. Bowing to pressure, Google recently announced that it would make the data it stores about its users anonymous after 18 to 24 months. Ask.com, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp., said it plans to implement a similar policy and will no longer link searches to IP addresses after a period of 18 months. That policy will be implemented by year's end, Crisp said. "We are eliminating the possibility of someone associating those queries with the person who made them." AskEraser will be available on the Ask.com and Ask.co.uk Web sites by the end of 2007. It will roll out to other markets next year.
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In an effort to appease EU regulators, Google on Tuesday said it will limit the amount of time it keeps user data to 18 months.
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A user's cookies will automatically expire after two years if they don't return to the search site.
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On the day that Microsoft unveiled the beta version of its search tool with 5 billion pages crawled, Google said it surpassed 8 billion Web pages.
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Google says it would consider keeping search data for longer than 18 months in an opt-in scheme.
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Microsoft Corp has officially muscled into the search engine market by launching its Windows Live Search after just seven months in beta.  The company's new search portal boasts several new features, including updated image and local search, related search and an updated user interface.
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An investigation set off by concerns over how long Google stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines.
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A new free Web browser, slated for official release on Thursday, is designed to protect users' privacy by not retaining details of the Web sites they've searched.