Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Last week search engine #2 (Yahoo) said it would reduce its retention period for search user log data by ten months – from thirteen months to three months. Instantly the call went out for Google and Microsoft to step up and shrink the time they store users’ search queries, IP addresses and cookies.

Consumer Watchdog targeted Google specifically, indicating they feel the #1 engine is way more of a threat than Microsoft in the #3 slot. They issued a press release calling for Google to offer users the option to opt out of letting Google retain their search log data.

Two days later, Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court and Policy Advocate John M. Simpson referred to this request in his letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

“We call on you to offer Google’s users such a clearly identifiable “opt out” function on its search engine that is essentially a zero personal data retention policy.”

That goes beyond Yahoo’s voluntary reduction in time.

But they don’t want Google to just match Yahoo’s three months. Consumer Watchdog calls for zero months, as in zero data retention, if consumers wish it so:

Court and Simpson again urged Schmidt to meet with them, (they had been requesting a meeting for several months). Consumer Watchdog and Google did have a phone conference Oct. 20 to talk about the privacy measures of Google’s Chrome Web browser. Google’s letter in response to that talk seemed to imply that the group doesn’t get how Chrome works.

Google uses data to help their own needs as well as bring in a higher degree of usability and relevance to its users. Currently, they are storing that data for nine months, with Microsoft actually keeping data twice as long.

All three search engines await the European Commission working party meeting on the issue in February – while the European Commission has long argued for six months’ retention, Yahoo is now at three. This may make the European privacy group change their requirements to three months by February.

Whether three months retention can actually do the search engines any good is debatable.