Top > Webmaster > 2007 > March > 2007-03-27

Google to Bolster User Anonymity

Google announced, Wednesday, it plans to improve its users anonymity, with a string of measures aimed at addressing the fears of privacy activists. The company announced it would it will begin taking serious precautions to insure the privacy of its millions of users, ad will erase personal information it currently keeps on record indefinitely.Currently, Google keeps logs of all searches, together with digital identifiers linking them to specific computers and Internet browsers. According to the company`s announcement, Wednesday, these logs will become anonymous after 18 to 24 months. Nicole Wong, Google`s deputy general counsel said: "We have decided to make this change with feedback from privacy advocates, regulators worldwide and, of course, from our users."

The announcement was met by mixed emotions from privacy advocates. "This is really the first time we have seen them make a decision to try and work out the conflict between wanting to be pro-privacy and collecting all the world`s information," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "They are not going to keep a profile on you indefinitely."

On the other hand, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said: "I think it is an absolute disaster for online privacy." The importance of Internet search privacy became apparent last year, when AOL released search records of 657 thousand American users. Reporters from the New York Times were able to track down the identity of the users. This incident caused AOL to change its privacy policies. The ensuing flap caused AOL to tighten its privacy policies, and the company now only keeps search logs for 13 months.