8 August 2007 - Large Internet search companies are aggressively competing with each other to offer better privacy protection to users, a leading advocacy group found in a report released Wednesday.

Under pressure form U.S. and European regulators, Google and other search companies have recently announced new policies to delete old user data, remove personal information from stored search records and even give users the option of having all search records deleted.


The Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy organization in Washington that has worked with Microsoft, Google and other companies, compared the storage practices and privacy policies of the five largest search providers, and made a series of recommendations on how to strengthen privacy protections.

"That the search engines are now competing to provide the best privacy protections is great news for users, who will, hopefully, see a continuing expansion of choices and controls," the CDT report said.

The center found a diversity of privacy practices, but did not rank the companies.

Google and Microsoft, for example, plan to keep search data 18 months before deleting it. Yahoo said it plans by mid-2008 to hold such data 13 months. Ask.com, which shares its data with Google, will offer a service called AskEraser, giving users the option of having search data deleted after a few hours.

Previously, most companies held onto search data indefinitely.

 Yahoo applies a personal-information filter to remove names and other personal identifiers from query results, while Microsoft and Google do not, according to the report. Like Ask.com, AOL shares data with Google.
Companies are looking at new ways to protect users' identities. Yahoo is investigating the use of a non-reversible identifier that is not derived from an IP address, the number assigned by a user's Internet service provider. Google removes partial IP address information and other data.

"The trend toward self-regulation by these companies is important, but we still need some baseline privacy legislation that would provide minimum standards to protect users," said Leslie Harris, president of the center. "And besides the big companies, there are a lot of bad actors out there."

This year at least five mergers or acquisitions of search and advertising service companies - Google and advertising powerhouse DoubleClick is perhaps the most controversial - have focused attention on "behavioral targeting," with companies using growing amounts of personal data to direct personalized advertising to individual users.

Some consumers want that service, while others oppose such extensive data collection. The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, and privacy issues are one of the concerns.

Companies say they need to collect and retain personal information to improve search results, deliver relevant advertising and combat fraud and abuse. Advocacy groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology say one key protection for users is to offer options on how personal data should be handled.

The center supports several proposals in Congress to provide comprehensive privacy protection, and Google, Microsoft, eBay and nine other companies endorse that goal in principle.

Another watchdog group, the Center for Digital Democracy, criticized the Center for Democracy and Technology, for accepting some funding from Microsoft. "The CDT has long been an ally of the various data-collection companies it purports to oversee on behalf of consumers," Jeff Chester, executive director of Digital Democracy, said in an e-mail sent to reporters.

Chester said his organization is funded by philanthropic foundations and individuals.

Harris said the CDT has been open about its ties to and discussions with industry, and that has increased its effectiveness in Congress.