Michael Zimmer.org

The European Commission’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party has released their long-awaited “Opinion on Data Protection Issues Related to Search Engines” (PDF), something I’ve debated here.
At first glance, it seems we’re in agreement that the Data Protection Directive applies to the processing of personal data by search engines. Here is the executive summary:
Search engines have become a part of the daily life of individuals using the Internet and nformation retrieval technologies. The Article 29 Working Party recognises the usefulness of search engines and acknowledges their importance.
In this Opinion …

On the heels of growing public awareness of how “large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user several hundred times a month,” a New York legislator has drafted a bill seeking to limit how Internet companies collect information about people online and use it for targeted advertising.
According to The Times, the bill “would make it a crime… for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers …

When Ask.com launched AskEraser, a new service which promises to protect user privacy by, upon request, deleting users’ search activity from Ask.com servers, I applauded the effort, but also pointed out some of its shortcomings.
The privacy advocacy group EPIC, however, took a much more aggressive position, and sent a letter to Ask.com [pdf] urging them to change Ask Eraser, noting three key problems with their implementation of this feature: (1) using Ask Eraser requires an opt-out cookie, (2) the cookie creates a quasi-unique identifier that could be used to track …

As previously discussed, Ask.com has launched AskEraser, a new service which promises to protect user privacy by, upon request, deleting users’ search activity from Ask.com servers.
Ask has put together quite an extensive help page explaining the details of AskEraser, including important caveats about the actual coverage of the service, which has some significant gaps. For example:
Where does AskEraser work and where does it not work?
AskEraser works if you come directly to Ask.com and perform a search within the Ask.com search box. If you access Ask.com through a search toolbar or …

I’ve been incredibly busy lately, and need to quickly catch up on some recent items of note:

Siva Vaidhyanathan has launched a new blog for his forthcoming book, “The Googlization of Everything“…
…while Cory Doctorow provides his fictional vision of Google at its most evil extreme, working with Homeland Security to monitor and track citizens. My favorite passage: “In the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t cost Google much to wire the city with webcams. Especially when measured against the ability to serve ads to people based on where they were sitting.”
Speaking …

I am unable to reconcile an inconsistency between the common appeal search engines make that data retention laws require them to store user search query histories, and what these laws (where enacted) actually require.
For example, this post at Google’s Public Policy Blog discusses the EU’s data retention directive, which, as summarized by the blog post, “imposes retention obligations between six months and two years in relation to accessible data generated or processed as a consequence of a communication or a communication service.” The post goes on to explain what …

I’m under deadline pressure currently, so very quickly:
Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills at CNet have surveyed the major search engine providers about their privacy practices related to retention of user data and behavioral targeting. Full story here, and the search engines’ actual replies here.

Excellent summary, but much remains unknown…

Google is testing new ad-serving technology with added privacy protections:
In our ad-serving tests, we’re introducing an opt-out mechanism so people can opt out of the test ad-serving cookie if they wish. In addition, we’re going to experiment with ways the industry could provide improved transparency for consumers and providing users with additional controls over the data gathered by ad servers. Some of the ideas we’re exploring include:

using “crumbled” cookies, so that the data typically associated with one unique identifying number or “cookie ID” will be broken up among multiple different …

Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, has posted a short video to help explain basic search privacy concepts, such as what appears in a search query log entry, etc. This is really basic stuff, but a good step towards educating users.
The video follows the normal company line (paraphrasing): “we collect search query data to improve our services, protect against fraud, and maintain security.” The latter two of those reasons are never explained, but I suppose we just need to trust them (seems like a culture of fear they’re trying to …

I noted a few weeks ago how privacy of Web search data has recently become an issue in the forefront of many people’s minds. Well, the virus is spreading:

Search engines dealing with privacy standards: The European Digital Rights advocacy group has posted a nice summary of how search engines are attempting to address various privacy concerns and standards.
Internet users criticize Google’s data greed and call for anonymous services: The German Working Group on Data Retention, an association of civil rights campaigners, data protection activists and Internet users, sent …

For those concerned about the ease at which Web search providers can monitor, capture and profile your search activity, you’ll be pleased to know that some important enhancements have been added to the popular TrackMeNot Firefox extension.
As you might recall, TrackMeNot was developed by Daniel Howe and Helen Nissenbaum to protect against search data profiling by issuing fake queries to popular search-engines: “It hides users’ actual search trails in a cloud of ‘ghost’ queries, significantly increasing the difficulty of aggregating such data into accurate or identifying user profiles.” I like …

Jimbo Wales replied to my open questions on some of the privacy concerns that quickly arise given that it seems Wikia Search will be advertising supported. From the open forum (my original requestions in bold, Wales’ answers beneath):
What kind of server logs will Wikia Search maintain of user activity?
I assume we will keep normal server logs for the purpose of research into what works and what doesn’t, how people are using the site, etc.
If so, what will the data retention policy be?
What do you recommend? My own rough view …

I think we’ve all heard now that Jimbo Wales has set his sights on creating a search engine to rival Google, Yahoo and the rest of the gang. It is currently under development as Wikia Search (but I’m guessing the name will change at some point to something more slick, like Mahalo or Sproose). The mission of Wikia Search is to “generate a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot.” At its core are 4 principles:

Transparency – Openness in how the systems …

The Jan van Eyck Academie in beautiful Maastricht, Netherlands is hosting a forum on the French information technology project Quaero, its political agenda, and the new frontiers that appear if its initial questions are to be taken seriously.
For the unacquainted, Quaero — “I search” in Latin — is a French, state-sponsored effort to boost technological research and development, as then-President Jacques Chirac put it. It clearly is also an attempt to counteract the American dominance of Internet access and search technologies, as well as a direct challenge to Google’s efforts …

The title of this post is the headline from a story in today’s Wall Street Journal (non-firewall version here), detailing how the largest web search engines are starting to make changes to how they handle the data collected from their users — and how some are approaching it as a competitive advantage to try to take some air out of Google’s balloon:
Microsoft and Ask are also trying to step out in front of the issue. The companies today will announce their plans to try to bring together a broad swath …