Google: the next Big Brother?

Recent reports have detailed the amount of data that search engines gather about its users, and the results are pretty surprising. Now new measures are attempting to alleviate these fears by limiting the amount of time websites can retain information about users.

Did you know that anyone with access to search engines’ data could find out the address of your browser and the operating system you are using, the sites you visit most often, and the results of your searches? And it’s not only this; companies such as Google have been criticised in the past for the lack of security in place for storing this data about their users. Now new measures have been announced by the big search engine companies; Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Ask, in which they lay out new guidelines as to how long information about users can be stored.

Microsoft has laid out plans to delete data about the personal computer’s searches after 18 months, the same length of time Google said it would store people’s browser addresses for. They also said that they would delete the ‘cookies’ which store information about the sites people visit after two years. Yahoo announced that it would remove all information after 13 months, with Ask being even bolder and unveiling plans to create an AskEraser which would allow people to carry out searches on the site and then delete all their data gleaned from it afterwards. The big names also called on all other search engines to lay out a collaborative code of conduct under which all search engines would operate in regards to how people’s data is stored. It is hoped that with these new protocols in place that users will be less concerned about using search engines, and therefore more likely to do so.

Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6911527.stm (23rd July 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6700997.stm (31st May 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6763307.stm (18th June 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6740075.stm (11th June 2007)