And the Search Engine Most Protective of User Privacy Is….
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Written By Drupad Sil | August 13, 2007 | Share This
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CNET.com today released the results of a survey they conducted on how the major search engines rank in terms of protecting their users’ personal information. After polling Ask.com, AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, CNET News declared Ask the winner, citing the site’s refusal to record what queries users type into the search box and the fact that it doesn’t use behavioral targeting.
The verbatim results of the poll include answers to questions like how long the engine retains search data, how they dispose of it, and whether they engage in behavioral targeting. Based on their answers, the other four major search engines had somewhat mixed results. The major strike against Google is the fact that it conducts only a partial anonymization of a user’s IP address, and this only after storing the data for 18 months. The popular consensus is that the operation is a step in the right direction for complete user privacy, but by itself inadequate for the search engine that handles about 53% of all queries made in the United States. Here is some commentary on the issue from a CNET article:
“‘I don’t think the Google proposal is adequate. This period is too long and it’s not in fact data destruction, it’s more data de-identification, and that should be happening in 18 to 24 hours, not months,’ said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. ‘I’m not persuaded that this isn’t still a ticking time bomb for Google’s search engine.’
Richard M. Smith, an Internet security and privacy consultant at Boston Software Forensics, said Google should never be archiving the IP address and cookies on servers. ‘Google should not be in the spy business,’ he said. ‘By logging IP addresses and search strings they are running the largest intelligence operation in the world.’
Anonymizing the last eight bits of the IP address effectively would enable investigators to narrow the IP address down to 256 possible computers or users. That would be similar to obscuring the last digit in someone’s street address.”
However, Google does not participate in behavioral targeting, or link user registration info to deliver specific ads (location-based, for example). On the other hand, Yahoo! also partially anonymizes user data (after 13 months), but it also links user registration info to deliver targeted ads, utilizes behavioral ad targeting, and does not allow users to opt out of the service. Microsoft is the same as Yahoo!, except stores data for 18 months and deletes it afterward. AOL stores data for 13 months after which it is deleted, does not link user registration info to ads, and performs behavioral targeting but allows users to opt out of it.
Why is your search privacy important? In October 2006, a man was found guilty of wireless hacking when his Google searches were used against him, and in November 2005 keywords from a man’s Google queries were enough to prosecute him for murdering his wife. There are several third-party ways of protecting yourself against having your search query data collected. One way is to configure your browser to refuse having cookies placed on your computer by search engines. Another is to route your queries through proxy servers like Black Box Search. The lack of information on what specific information search engines retain, and to what end, is making users nervous. From CNET:
“The companies say they’re following industry standards, with both Microsoft and Yahoo noting in our survey that they perform behavioral targeting only in accordance with Network Advertising Initiative principles. But liberal groups are becoming increasingly vocal, and the Federal Trade Commission last week announced it would hold a two-day forum in November to address behavioral advertising concerns.”
Look for this to become an increasingly hot issue, especially following Yahoo’s acquisition of Right Media and Microsoft’s aQuantive purchase, both of which will alter advertising on the two large search engines.
Topics: Ask.com, Google, Legal Issues, Search: News, Yahoo! |