Google  has announced a change in its policy on indefinitely storing search histories. Google will no longer store data that could link individual users with their search histories for an extended period of time.

Instead the records will become anonymous after 18 to 24 months, meaning the information would no longer be traceable to the individual searcher.

Some privacy advocates hailed the move as a step forward. Others, among them Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, feel there's no reason to keep the data even that long.

"I think it is an absolute disaster for online privacy," Rotenberg told The New York Times.

His fear is that Google will set a standard, and the 18-24 month period will become the standard length of time that search companies retain such information.

It's not necessarily clear why Google needs to retain logs that tie individual users to their searches for any extended period. 

Admittedly, companies need some information about how many clicks came from the same address to resolve click fraud disputes.  But those disputes usually focus on how many clicks came from the same IP address in the span of minutes or hours.  Moreover, its questionable that such information would be needed for more than two-to-three months anyway.

Expect this issue to continue to grow, especially if another "AOL"-type incident occurs.

you may remember that in the summer of 2006, AOL inadvertantly released search logs for more than 650,000 users. Although the information was not tied to IP addresses, some searchers were still easily identifiable just by the nature of their queries. The New York Times used the information to identify  Thelma Arnold, listed as "User No. 4417749" in the search logs, based solely on her search history records.

And recall also that the Justice Department attempted to randomly grab millions of records from Google.

Is there a good compromise on this issue? Privacy advocates would say "no," particularly since none of the search engines has yet to offer a good non-commercial reason why it's necessary to store the information.

I'm not sure how this will ultimately play out. Google's move is a step in the right direction, but in an age where maintaining privacy is increasingly difficult, how do you balance the needs of commerce against the rights of individuals?

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