Google limits data retention in compromise with EU
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Google Inc. is scaling back how  long it keeps personally identifiable data accumulated from its  Web users, seeking to mollify a European Union watchdog that  has questioned its privacy policies.
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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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Google says it would consider keeping search data for longer than 18 months in an opt-in scheme.
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It ain't your field The retention of search engine query data is a security matter and not one for Europe's data protection officials, according to Google's global privacy chief.â¦
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Google Inc., responding to concerns from a European Union privacy group, has decided to make the data it stores about end users anonymous in its server logs after 18 months.
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Privacy to be central to lawmaker hearings in Europe on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
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Google Inc, the world&#39;s largest  Internet company, will propose at a meeting of international  policymakers in France on Friday that national regulators agree  on a basic set of global privacy protections.
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By ALASTAIR DALTON  COMPUTER users could win new rights over the use of personal information by Google after a European investigation was launched into the world's largest search engine.
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BRUSSELS - European Union regulators will decide before November whether to clear Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion takeover bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick or study the issue further.
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Faced with concerns by European online privacy advocates, Google is promising to obscure information about people&#39;s Internet searches after only 18 months.
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European data protection officials have written to Google warning that the search giant may be in breach of E.U. privacy because of the way it retains data on individual searches.
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Web search leader Google  Inc., which stores vast amounts of data on the Web surfing  habits of its users, sees government intrusions rather than  accidental public disclosures of data as the greatest threat to  online privacy, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
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Google says 'there's no black and white answer' The European Union moved closer to labelling Internet Protocol addresses as personal information yesterday at a public hearing of the Civil Liberties Committee.â¦
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A European Union probe triggered by concerns over how long Google stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines.
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Hopping on the privacy-protection bandwagon, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are limiting how long their Internet search engines retain potentially sensitive data about their users.
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InfoWorld - Google Inc. will make the data it stores about end users anonymous in its server logs after 18 months, part of an effort to deflate concerns about privacy raised last month by a European Union working group.
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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