Yahoo is slashing the period during which it retains personal data about user searches. It’s also widening the range of data that it anonymizes after this period.

The move follows a clear trend among search giants this year. In September, Google halved its retention period to nine months. And earlier this month Microsoft said it would be willing to meet a European Union request to cut its retention from 18 to six months as long as its rivals followed suit.

Yahoo now says it will cut its retention period from 13 months to just three months. After this period, it will edit records so that they can’t identify individual users’ history.

The firm is also expanding this anonymization process: rather than just covering the terms people actually search for, it will now include which pages they visit , the ads which they saw, and which ads they actually clicked on.

Yahoo says it is reserving the right to keep personally identifiable data for up to six months in cases of fraud or data security breaches. That’s a curious limit as, if there’s credible evidence of such criminal behavior, you’d think even privacy advocates would have no objection to the relevant data being kept as long as legally necessary. But if Yahoo is using a “just in case” policy, then there’s no reason why it couldn’t class all data in this category.

It’s clear Yahoo is trying to reposition itself as the market leader on privacy issues: indeed, the company’s privacy head Anne Toth called it a “stake in the ground”. It’s also clearly intended as a way to stave off regulation, both in Europe and the United States.

Still, it’s surprising to see ad-related data involved in the anonymization process. While firms have always argued search data is useful for improving their services, ad data is likely far more valuable when it comes to making money from a search engine.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm under Legal, Yahoo!.

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