Europe Mulls Six-Month Limit for Search Engine Data Storage

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 4:40 americium PDT

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Search engine companies may be put for a clang with European regulators over how long personal information related to hunts should be retained.

A new study from the 's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party urges that personal hunt information should be discarded after six months, despite the fact most hunt companies are retaining information much longer.

The study looked at how information handling by hunt engines complies with European ordinances such as as the Data Protection Directive.

Search information can be used to construct a profile of a person's interests, dealings and intentions, even if some identifying information is removed, the study said. The aggregation of information en masse shot by hunt engines have considerable privateness implications, it said.

The report, available on the Web land site of the , urges that hunt engine information should be either deleted or irreversibly made anonymous after it no longer functions a purpose, a time time period that should not transcend six months.

Beyond that period, hunt engines "must show comprehensively that it is strictly necessary for the service," the study said.

The study also rejected defences by hunt engine companies that longer information keeping time periods aid break the service or to better security.

"After the end of a hunt session, personal information could be deleted, and the continued storage therefore necessitates an adequate justification," the study said. " However, some hunt engines look to reserve information indefinitely, which is prohibited."

The information collected by hunt engines can include a host of details, including information science (Internet protocol) address, hunt terms, information and clip of the hunt as well trade name of browser, operating system and linguistic communication used.

The study takes purpose at some of the greatest Internet participants such as as , and .

Google said on Tuesday it have reacted to concerns over hunt data, saying it was the first company to anonymize its hunt logs. It also changed the termination modern times of information data files it put on PCs, known as cookies, which let for illustration a individual to remain logged in to a Web land land site or for the site to retrieve peculiar preferences.

"Protecting users' privateness is at the bosom of all our products," said Simon Peter Fleischer, Google's planetary privateness council, in a statement.

Yahoo said it was reviewing the workings party's report, adding it is committed to providing clear comprehensive privateness policies. Microsoft could not be immediately reached for comment.

All three companies reserve some hunt information longer than six months, which could eventually set them at likelihood with the Commission. The workings political party study will be used by the Committee as it analyzes information protection.