Google caves on privacy

GOOGLE SAID yesterday it would cut its data anonymisaton deadline in half, from 18 to nine months, but the firm is whining that, by doing so, it will be leaving people at greater risk from fraud.

Feeling the mounting pressure from the US department of Justice, the EU and privacy campaigners, Google, the giant of Internet search, has apparently been forced by the Lilliputians to cave in, according to a blog post on the company site.

But despite “significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users", Google’s global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, senior privacy counsel Jane Horvath and software engineer Alma Whitten solemnly warned the move could do more harm than good and "would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users".

The three reckoned the whole reason behind clutching onto data for a year and-a-half in the first place was not to ‘invade’ people’s privacy and spy on them, but to have enough time to go through data and pick out fraudsters and scammers. So, as Google sees it, the less time it has to pick through your private information, the less privacy benefits you actually get. And if you believe that, you’ll also believe pigs fly.

Google is feeling sorry for itself and is obviously feeling the urge for a little moan about how nobody likes you once you reach the top. Boo-hoo, pass the tissues. But luckily, it seems the firm is also learning from the Vole’s mistakes and taking antitrust accusations from the DOJ – about its search advertising deal with Yahoo – very seriously.

So as long as the firm resolves to stick to its mantra, some good may prevail after all. µ