Comments on: Google’s Cookie to have 2 Year Expiration (Because it is of little value after that time) http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/ information ethics : new media : privacy : values in design : 2.0 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:17:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Michael Zimmer http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/comment-page-1/#comment-70381 Michael Zimmer Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:38:56 +0000 http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/#comment-70381 Ian - I agree. Giving users control over their information would be the best course of action. I'm willing to give up the promise of personalized results & advertisements in order to keep my personal information from being routinely captured by my search engine provider, but Google doesn't give me that option... A key question here, from Google's perspective, is whether users might be willing to <i>pay</i> for such privacy protection, since Google would - presumably - loose revenue if the ads are as uniquely tailored to the individual user... Ian – I agree. Giving users control over their information would be the best course of action. I’m willing to give up the promise of personalized results & advertisements in order to keep my personal information from being routinely captured by my search engine provider, but Google doesn’t give me that option…

A key question here, from Google’s perspective, is whether users might be willing to pay for such privacy protection, since Google would – presumably – loose revenue if the ads are as uniquely tailored to the individual user…

]]> By: Ian Brown http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/comment-page-1/#comment-70380 Ian Brown Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:21:36 +0000 http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/#comment-70380 Of course, the truly privacy-protective course for Google to take would be to only store search records for users that had explicitly opted for that to happen. I do hope that Google's idea of "anonymising" records after 18 months isn't to replace IP addresses with other "random" identifiers in their logs. AOL already demonstrated the futility of that course of action. Of course, the truly privacy-protective course for Google to take would be to only store search records for users that had explicitly opted for that to happen.

I do hope that Google’s idea of “anonymising” records after 18 months isn’t to replace IP addresses with other “random” identifiers in their logs. AOL already demonstrated the futility of that course of action.

]]> By: Michael Zimmer http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/comment-page-1/#comment-70141 Michael Zimmer Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:12:59 +0000 http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/#comment-70141 Ash: Yes, they've announced that they will "anonymize" the IP address and cookies after 18 months. But they haven't released precisely how they will actually do that ("Our engineers are already busy working out the technical details"), or when it will be implemented. Regardless, attempts to anonymize the data is not the same as <i>removing the records altogether</i>. The latter is the stronger move to make, and the move I am calling for. Ash: Yes, they’ve announced that they will “anonymize” the IP address and cookies after 18 months. But they haven’t released precisely how they will actually do that (“Our engineers are already busy working out the technical details”), or when it will be implemented. Regardless, attempts to anonymize the data is not the same as removing the records altogether. The latter is the stronger move to make, and the move I am calling for.

]]> By: Ash http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/comment-page-1/#comment-70140 Ash Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:01:41 +0000 http://michaelzimmer.org/2007/07/16/googles-cookie-to-have-2-year-expiration-because-it-is-of-little-value-after-that-time/#comment-70140 "An easy way to take this announcement a step further would be for Google to announce that not only will the cookie on my computer expire after 24 months of non-use, but that they will also remove any record associated with that cookie from their internal databases" Um they already do, they anonymize after 18 months,6 months earlier than you asked! “An easy way to take this announcement a step further would be for Google to announce that not only will the cookie on my computer expire after 24 months of non-use, but that they will also remove any record associated with that cookie from their internal databases”

Um they already do, they anonymize after 18 months,6 months earlier than you asked!

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