Google is slicing and dicing the amount of time it stores IP addresses. Previously keeping them intact for 18 months, Google is now anonymizing IP addresses at 9 months.
This should make a European Group happier. In April, Article 29 Data Protection Working Party called for search engines to set their data retention at 6 months. The EU requires search engines to set their data retention limit at 18 months.
On another privacy front, Google is addressing concerns about Google Suggest. They're changing the anonymization of user suggestions to 24 hours. Google only takes 2% of search requests as data for Suggest.
Expect the new Suggest data anonymization to be rolled out by the end of the month.
What do you think of Google's updates to their stored data? Do you feel better about privacy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Introducing SES Online
Want to view one of the sessions you missed or listen to an especially informative presenter a second time? SES New York sessions are available for purchase on ClickZ Academy's new e-Learning site. SES is now Online!
