European
Union Questions Google's Data
Retention Policy
EU's Article 29 Working
Party, which is charged with providing expert opinion on issues of data
protection, wrote to Google and said that despite
recent changes in the search engine's data-retention policy, Google still does
not meet EU standards for data retention.
May 29, 2007: Kawamoto, Dawn,
Europe questions Google's privacy policy, ZDNet: "A European Commission advisory group has
raised concerns about how Google uses and manages users' search data."
In response to the letter Google
decided to make the data it stores about its users anonymous in the server logs
after 18 months (previously Google had said it would make the data anonymous
after 18 to 24 months). The Article 29 Working Party said that it still needs to
analyze Google's response to see whether it's an acceptable solution, and has
asked Google several new questions about technologies that they use to collect
search information.
The working group
also
attempts to deal with search engines in general and scrutinize their activities
from a data-protection point of view.
June 22, 2007: Williams,
Chris,
EU privacy watchdogs extend search engine probe, The Register:
"EU privacy worrywarts will expand their investigation into Google to other
search engines' data retention policies."
Also trouble for Google in the USA: The Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an antitrust investigation into Google Inc.'s
proposed 3.1 billion dollar purchase of ad-management technology company
DoubleClick Inc. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and other privacy
groups had previously asked the FTC to investigate the privacy implications
of the deal. The groups fear that the combination of Google's search history and
DoubleClick's tracking of web sites visited would "give one company access to
more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other
company in the world."
May 28, 2007: Lohr, Steve,
Google deal said to bring U.S. scrutiny, CNet:
"The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust
investigation into Google's planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online
advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the
agency's plans said Monday. "
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