Ask.com To Allow Users to Control Data Retention

[Invader Zim]

Threat Level - Wired Blogs

By Ryan Singel EmailJuly 20, 2007 | 7:08:24 PM

Ask.com announced Friday that it will allow search users to control how and whether their searches are recorded, marking the first time a major search company has modified their data retention policy to make it user controllable.

Ask plans to roll out Ask Eraser by the end of the year in the U.S. and U.K., according to the announcement. Search results pages will include language reminding users of their preferences. Ask will also uncouple search history from identifying user information after 18 months, which matches a change Google announced earlier this year about anonymizing IP addresses for older records.

Ask made the decision after conferring with the Center for Democracy and Technology.

"We're extremely pleased to see a new breed of innovative, competitive tools that allow users greater control over their personal information and online experiences," said CDT Deputy Director Ari Schwartz.

Google has been under scrutiny in recent months for its data retention practices. The company defends its policy of keeping information on every user's queries by suggesting that it is trying to comply with European data retention guidelines. However, those guidelines do not apply to the vast majority of Google's services, prompting European privacy regulators to look closely at Google's behavior.

Google announced Monday it was modifying its current use of tracking cookies, which last for decades, to make them expire in two years if a user never visits a Google-powered site again. That announcement was largely cosmetic, however, and would have no real world effect on the vast majority of Google users.

Google's database of the online activity of its users includes search histories, URLs of websites visited by registered users who don't unsubscribe from the Web History program, data from its ad placement service, its website analytics service and messaging data from its Gmail email and instant messaging service. That reach will be expanded with its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, a banner ad-serving company that tracks users across thousands of sites. Congress and federal regulators are looking critically at that proposal.

Google's far flung services also complicate Ask's announcement since Ask contracts with Google for its ad service.

See Also: Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press was here first.

[Doctor D]

Originally Posted by Invader Zim

Ask.com announced Friday that it will allow search users to control how and whether their searches are recorded, marking the first time a major search company has modified their data retention policy to make it user controllable.

I used it too. Yeah, I was all "algorithm'd out". My neighbors asked me about it and I told them, it's just a system... you gotta get into it.