Yahoo Cuts Data Retention to 90 Days

Yahoo! will cut the time it stores personal data gathered from Web surfing to three months, making its retention policy the shortest among peers.

From the Associated Press:

The company’s new privacy policy comes amid mounting concerns among regulators and lawmakers from Washington to Europe about how much data big Internet companies are collecting on their users and how that information is being used. Yahoo’s announcement also ratchets up the pressure on rivals Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to follow its lead.

In September, Google said it would “anonymize,” or mask, the numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses on its server logs after nine months, down from a previous period of 18 months. And Microsoft, which keeps user data for 18 months, said last week it would support an industry standard of six months.

Under Yahoo’s new policy, the company will strip out portions of users’ IP addresses, alter small tracking files known as “cookies” and delete other potential personally identifiable information after 90 days in most cases. In cases involving fraud and data security, the company will anonymize the data after six months.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo also said it will expand the scope of data that it anonymizes to encompass not only search engine logs, but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. That information is used to personalize online content and advertising.

Yahoo will begin implementing the new policy next month and says it will be effective across all the company’s services by mid-2010.

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Tags: Anne Toth, Anonymize, Ari Schwartz, Data Retention, Edward Markey, Google, Internet Protocol, Microsoft, User Logs, Yahoo!

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