Google agrees changes on privacy

Category internet, Business | Permalink | 14. June 2007

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Google on Tuesday made fresh concessions to European Union data protection officials, agreeing to limit the amount of time it keeps users’ personal search data to 18 months.

The US internet group also said it would “radically redesign” its policy on keeping information from “cookies” or identifier programmes on individual computers.

Google cookies are set to expire after 30 years but this could be cut down to just two in the face of European Union criticism.

This is the second time in the past four months that Google has announced changes to its privacy policy in response to pressure from the Article 29 working party, a group of national officials that advises the European Union on privacy policy.

Officials are worried that data from Google searches and cookies can be used to identify individuals and create profiles of their political opinions, religious beliefs and sexual preferences.

Last March, Google promised to limit storage time to between 18 months and two years but this was not enough to satisfy officials. They told Google last month that the new storage period “does not seem to meet the requirements” of European law. They also raised new issues about the long life of cookies.

The privacy issue is in danger of becoming an embarrassment to Google, industry analysts said.

“The really big danger for Google is not so much that relations with the EU blow up but that it will come to be seen as not very caring of privacy by the user community,” said David Bradshaw, analyst at Ovum, the research group.

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