SAN FRANCISCO, March 15 (UPI) -- Search engine giant Google says it will limit how long it keeps information on Internet users' searches.
Google keeps information linking searches with specific computers, but said it will make that information anonymous after 18 to 24 months, The New York Times reported.
"We have decided to make this change with feedback from privacy advocates, regulators worldwide and, of course, from our users," Nicole Wong, Google's deputy general counsel, told The Times.
The move got mixed results from privacy advocates.
"I think it is an absolute disaster for online privacy," Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told The Times.
He predicted that because Google is so dominant in the search engine world, other companies would likely follow the 18- to 24-month standard, which he told The Times was too long.
But Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the group Center for Democracy and Technology, seemed to see it in a better light.
"This is really the first time we have seen them make a decision to try and work out the conflict between wanting to be pro-privacy and collecting all the world's information," he told The Times. "They are not going to keep a profile on you indefinitely."
