- Monday, 30 November 2009
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It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid - George Bernard Shaw
EU welcomes Google data retention reform
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION on Thursday praised web search powerhouse Google's recent decision to cut in half the time it keeps personally identifiable data on web searches.
In a statement, EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said that he " considers this move towards compliance with European privacy principles and EU data protection laws as a good step in the right direction." However, he also noted that the EU's recommendation is that organisations should retain individuals' personal data for no longer than six months.
The company announced Monday that it would soon start archiving users' unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for only nine months instead of 18 months under its previous policy.
Barrot also stated that he "attaches special significance to Google's newly introduced policy of informing its users about its privacy policies in a transparent, easily understood manner."
If you're interested, Google's privacy overview outlines its data retention and use policies. µ
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Users do not have unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. In fact human beings have no IP address, unless they are part of the Borg collective, and then it would be a drone address. Computers MAY have been assigned a unique IP address, but often they get a random IP address assigned from a pool for a short time period. And even then the IP address may not be unique since the same address can be shared by multiple computers, a common practice used by ISPs who provide rotten uni-directional Internet access. Last but not least, computers may host multiple users at the same time, unless they are operating under the yoke of a primitive MS-DoS derivative.

It is so good to know that the EU feels so positive about Google getting closer to complying with the law. Don't push Google too hard on that one. Sigh.
Have a read of this.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10038963-46.html

It sounds like Google's 'anonymization' may in fact be a trivial, ineffective change.