Digital News

Do you Yahoo? Only for three months at a time…

Search engine Yahoo has announced that it is to cut the time it stores personal data from 13 months down to three. In a move that is certain to force the hands of other search engines, Yahoo said that the decision to cut the time it stores information gathered from web surfing came about following a “review of its data practices”.

Yahoo isn’t the first to make this move. Last year, giant rivals Google cut the length of time it held onto user’s personal search data after a data protection group called Article 29 wrote to the firm, questioning its privacy policies and pointing out that its practice of retaining data could be in breach of European privacy laws. Search engines say that they have to keep information about search queries, IP numbers and details about how searchers use their engines to improve their services and fight threats such as fraud, spam and malicious attacks. They also claim that retaining the information is vital to aid “valid legal orders” from law enforcement agencies.

Previously, the search engines said that it was impossible to reduce the time data was held below 6-9 months, but Yahoo has just blown that number out of the water. Privacy campaigners have welcomed the move and have urged Google and Microsoft to follow suit. They believe that information is being held unnecessarily by the engines. Privacy International is calling for all search engines to remove information held on individual user’s activities within 30 days, seeing no reason for the engines to retain it past that period. The worry is that a recent rash of data leaks has left users concerned and organisations embarrassed.

Although there are arguments for the retention of data for fraud or police investigations, the vast majority of information held is legitimate and perfectly innocent. What worries civil rights campaigners is that the Internet search engines have a ‘Big Brother’ approach to data collation, building up profiles of users in order to target them with specific marketing or other, more sinister motives. Just because you’re paranoid does not mean that they aren’t watching you…