EU Working Party pushing search engines to limit data retention

Under pressure from the Article 29 Working Party - comprised of officials from various governments - Yahoo and Microsoft are beginning to make changes in their privacy policies. Google has already agreed to keep search data for no longer than 18 months and shorten the life of cookies from 30 years to two.

Yahoo and Microsoft's current policy is to keep data for as long as is commercially useful, which means, in practice, retention without end. The Article 29 Working Party has raised concerns that by keeping user data, search engine companies could identify individuals and create profiles of their preferences.

The announcement comes on the heels of Google’s bid for online adverting company DoubleClick, which has raised serious antitrust pushback. The purchase will be reviewed by the European Commission.

“Given the pan-European nature of both Google and DoubleClick’s businesses we felt that the Commission – not national regulators – was best placed to review the acquisition. We are pleased that our request has been granted and look forward to making our case to the Commission,” said Julia Holtz, Google’s competition counsel for Europe.

The verdict is still out on whether Microsoft and Yahoo will cooperate fully with the suggestions made by the Working Party.

“We are talking to customers, to the industry and government officials about this, and intend to provide an update in the near future which will more directly give the time frame,” said Brendon Lynch, privacy expert at Microsoft.