Google, Privacy, the EU and You.

Today Google said it would anonymise search data after 9 months, rather than 18 months, notes El Reg quoting a Google blog post over here.

Of course, it would be much more heartening if their embrace of their famous "Don't Be Evil"principles came from their own good will, rather than being pushed (hard) every inch of the way by the European Union, and the appointment of a respected US lawyer to look into anti-trust issues. And they even note that the shorter time frame would protect users against the risk of litigants such as Viacom ( which gained access to YouTube's user logs ) sueing to gain access to Google's stored search data - doing well by doing good

Google has taken it all overall with typical good grace:

While we’re glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we’re also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality and innovation that may result from having less data. As the period prior to anonymization gets shorter, the added privacy benefits are less significant and the utility lost from the data grows. So, it’s difficult to find the perfect equilibrium between privacy on the one hand, and other factors, such as innovation and security, on the other.

Loss of privacy and security from having data anonymised earlier - can someone explain that one?

Update - it would seem there is also a bonus play, Google giving way on Chrome privacy after worries from the EU et al, notes the Washington Post.