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Yahoo! pledges 90-day policy for data retention
Beats Google's six-month promise…

By Reuters

Published: Thursday 18 December 2008

Yahoo! will cut to three months the time it stores personal data gathered from web surfing, making its retention policy the shortest among rivals, the company said on Wednesday.

The company will 'anonymise' the computer addresses of its users within three months in most cases, from a prior standard of 13 months. Yahoo! is reserving the right to keep data for up to six months if fraud or system security are involved.

Internet search companies have come under pressure from European and other data-protection officials to do more to protect the privacy of users.

Earlier this year, industry leader Google halved the amount of time it stores personal data to nine months. Microsoft has said it will cut the time to six months if rivals do the same.

Ari Schwartz, vice president at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a privacy advocacy group, said: "Google first went to 18 months and started this competition."

Yahoo!'s pledge "is more significant because they are getting rid of some data after 90 days and they actually have an implementation plan to get this done", he added.

The EU has recommended that companies keep data for no more than six months and has urged the sector to adopt an industry-wide standard.

Yahoo!'s vice president of policy and privacy chief, Anne Toth, said: "This was our attempt to put a stake in the ground [on the issue]".

Once the companies make commitments on data retention, they are enforceable under federal and state laws in the US, Schwartz added.