March 15, 2007 | Thursday

Google Anonymizing Search Records To Protect Privacy

By Jon Myers, Director Of Search  in Search Engines |Google |Search Technology

Google has announced that it will now anonymize the server log data that it collects after 18 to 24 months, as a way to better protect the privacy of its users. Until now, Google has retained server log data in its original form indefinitely, which made it possible for anyone with access to those logs—such as government agencies possibly gaining them through legal processes—to potentially track queries back to users.

Search Engine Land has done some great analysis looking into the concept of doing this and how you can and cannot use this information to track this back to the source of an individual user. Is there another reason to hide this data? And why 18 - 24 months?

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