Microsoft: We’ll scale back Data Retention… If Google will.

In a move that will be cautiously welcomed by civil liberties campaigners, Microsoft have indicated that they are willing to scale back their policy on data retention in line with European guidelines which stipulate that search data should not be kept longer than six months. However, they have a condition; they want Google to do the same before they will commit.

Microsoft’s point is that if they simply switched to the six month policy it would result in “A very unlevel playing field,” John Vassallo – vice president, Microsoft E.U. affairs. It’s easy to understand why they think that – at present the company keeps hold of search data for a year and a half before making it anonymous. To go out on a limb and cut that by two thirds would leave them at a severe disadvantage in terms of targeted marketing when they really can’t afford to lose any more ground to Google.

There is no word yet on what Google thinks of the proposal, though in September they did say they would anonymise the IP addresses that are connected with specific searches after nine months.

The forgotten player in all this is Yahoo. They anonymise data after 13 months.

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