In a move to one-up its search-engine rivals, Yahoo on Wednesday announced a new global data-retention policy that far surpasses what Google and Microsoft have proposed.
Indeed, Yahoo is setting the industry standard for data retention with its promise to anonymize user log data within 90 days -- with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo is also expanding its policy to apply not only to search-log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks.
"In our world of customized online services, responsible use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining user trust," said Anne Toth, Yahoo's vice president of policy. "We know that our users expect relevant and compelling content and advertising when they visit Yahoo, but they also want assurances that we are focused on protecting their privacy."
Yahoo Gets Aggressive
Privacy advocates, including European Union regulators, have put pressure on search engines to slash data-storage times. The current industry standard is 18 months. Microsoft last week told European regulators it's ready to cut the time it holds users' search data from 18 months to six months -- if other search-engine companies do the same.
"What we've done since April is evaluate the multiple uses of search data to ascertain if we can, in time, move to a six-month time frame," said Peter Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist. "Our answer is yes, we can, but we don't believe it makes sense for us to make this change until our competitors also commit to meeting this higher standard with respect to both the method and time frame for anonymization."
Yahoo isn't waiting for other search engines to cooperate. Instead, the heads of the business and engineering units at Yahoo worked with the privacy and data-governance teams to review data needs. Their goal was to ensure that Yahoo retains data only long enough to serve its business and user-experience needs while maintaining the ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal obligations.
"This policy represents Yahoo's assessment of the minimum amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted relationship with users," Toth said. "We're proud this new policy sets a new benchmark for the industry."
What Will Google Do?
Yahoo said users won't see a difference in their experience with Yahoo products or services, and advertisers will continue to leverage its interest-based advertising systems to deliver the most relevant ads. That revelation begs the question: Do users really care how long search engines retain their search data?
"I question to what extent consumers have any awareness of data-retention issues," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "They do have awareness that their behavior is tracked online, and there is considerable discomfort with that, but in terms of specific issues as to how long data is kept, I think there is total ignorance on the part of regular consumers."
Yahoo's move also begs questions about what Microsoft, Google and others will do in response to this aggressive policy. Sterling said it puts pressure on the search-engine industry to at least shave time off their data-retention policies. The European Union has pushed for a six-month limit.
"We might see Microsoft quickly come out and say it will cut its policy to six months, or maybe match Yahoo," Sterling said. "If that happens, certainly Google will have to follow suit. Google may not come down to three months, but they may come down to six months. If Google were to be isolated in this, it would not only incur the wrath of the EU regulators but it would also suffer in the press as the other two key players stepped up to the requested standard."
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