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Google, MSN, and Yahoo Asked to Modify Retention of Personal Search Data.

Developments occurred in China this week regarding keyword search and retenion of personal search data by search engines.

The Taiyuan University of Technology is testing software agents that crawl through any search engine looking for searched keyword results as well as any personal data that's been collected about the searcher. Recap of InformationWeek story.

As regulators in the European Union press the major search engines like: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to modify their policies for retaining personal data, scientists at China's Taiyuan University of Technology are researching new ways to collect and correlate data about Web surfers to provide more precise keyword search results.

The Taiyuan University of Technology research is testing software agents that crawl through any search engine looking not only for searched keyword results but also for any personal data that's been collected about the searcher.

The goal is to use information about the surfer's background or interests, blended with search history information and filter search results accordingly.

While this research may still be in the workshop in China, it's not likely to sit well with European regulators. The E.U.'s Article 29 Working Group, a collection of national officials from European countries that advises the European Union on privacy policy, is already investigating the privacy policies of Google, Yahoo, and MSN and evaluating their data protection issues.

Google is the first major search engine provider to offer some visibility into its data retention policies, but the Article 29 Working Group wants the search engine to go further. Google in May provided the group with information about how long it stores server-log information.

The company's policy is to "anonymize" server logs that are older than 18-24 months, a practice that the group said, in a letter to Google Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer. Google will not specify the purposes for which server logs are kept.

The group does like Google's plans to use more anonymous data, but notes that even "anonymized" data can still contain the user's network prefix. There are also concerns that Google can reverse the process used to make users anonymous when it wants more info about a surfer. The group has pointed out that, even though Google is based in the United States, it is legally obligated to comply with European privacy laws.

The same applies to Google's competitors in the search market, including Microsoft and Yahoo, neither of which has specified any time limits on the data that they hold on users.

More than 60% of all keyword searches are conducted using the robot powered Google search engine, while Yahoo is used about 21% of the time, and Microsoft MSN/Windows Live Search is tapped about 8%, according to the Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search report.

Search data privacy concerns are likely to be perceived differently depending upon many variables, in general baby boomers have a greater expectation of that a Web site or search engine will keep their information confidential, unless the user explicitly gives permission to share that information. Indeed, user demographics are likely to play an important role in the future of privacy on the Web when permissive data sharing is involved.

The E.U. is more concerned with the subtle aggregation, requirements management software and sales of search data, and it's going to continue to press the major search engines until they come clean.