Google defends keeping your personal data
10:47AM
Wednesday April 09, 2008
By Eric Auchard
Google says it needs to keep personal data harvested from its users for 18 months to improve search results. Photo / Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO - Google has defended its policy of retaining data on web users for up to 18 months as necessary to improve search results, responding to an EU report that saw no need for search services to keep personal data beyond six months.
A group of data protection commissioners from across the European Union found that computer web addresses and cookie monitoring are personal information that search services should do more to protect.
The long-anticipated set of recommendations for how European data protection laws should be applied to web search services can be downloaded in pdf form here.
The report by the so-called Article 29 Working Party calls for increased user notification and warns web search services that fail to do so may be unlawful.
Cookies are small bits of text that mark the comings and goings of computer users to websites. They are widely used by commercial sites to make web surfing more convenient and by advertisers to measure audiences. But they also raise privacy concerns due to their potential to track user behaviour.
