Google and Yahoo! have encountered a new hurdle in their dominance of the Search Engine world. A European Union Privacy Panel has asked Google and Yahoo! to follow the European Data Protection Rules and shed all collected user data in six months. The fact that both these Search Engines are based outside Europe hasn’t made any difference to the panel report

According to Associated Press, Google was the very first Search Engine to reduce its user data storage period to 18 months. Followed by Yahoo! and AOL, who currently have the lowest data storage time period of a mere 12 months. Still, the EU insists that time period should be cut down to 6 months arguing that, it doesn’t see any need of data retention beyond six months. European Union’s executive branch called the EU Commission is in the process of redrafting data-protection rules for 27 nations alliance. Though the EU Privacy Panel has no jurisdiction, still it insists that if these search engines use any private user data which can comprise of IP addresses and Cookies of a European user, the case would fall under EU rules and regulations. This report can definitely mean possible stricter privacy policies.

According to the EU Privacy Panel report, “If personal data is stored, the retention period should be no longer than necessary for the specific purposes of the processing. Therefore, after the end of a search session, personal data should be deleted and continued storage needs an adequate justification."

In a statement, Yahoo! spokeswoman Kelley Benander said, “The company is committed to striking the right balance between protecting user privacy, providing the most compelling online experience, meeting our legal obligations and preventing fraud."

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Search Optimization News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.