[Infowarrior] - Google shortens data retention time

[Richard Forno]

Google shortens data retention time
Posted by Margaret Kane

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10036090-83.html

Under pressure from European regulators, Google is halving the amount  
of time its stores IP addresses.

In a blog post, Google said it would keep IP addresses on its server  
logs for nine months before anonymizing them, down from the 18 months  
it had previously stored the data.

A European Commission advisory body issued an opinion paper earlier  
this year urging search engines to delete data collected about their  
users after six months.

At the time, Google said that the proposals could have an impact on  
its ability "to provide quality products and services for users, like  
accurate search results, as well as system security and integrity  
concerns."

Google filed a response to EU regulators yesterday, and said in a blog  
that it arrived at the new policy of anonymizing data after nine  
months "after months of work our engineers developed methods for  
preserving more of the data's utility while also anonymizing IP  
addresses sooner."

"We haven't sorted out all of the implementation details, and we may  
not be able to use precisely the same methods for anonymizing as we do  
after 18 months, but we are committed to making it work," Peter  
Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google said in the blog.

Google had introduced the 18 month policy in 2007.