JagsLive writes "Google's privacy reform is a hoax : Pulling the wool over privacy advocates' eyes :
AFTER GOOGLE announced Monday that it would begin removing Internet addresses from web search records after only nine months instead of its former 18 month retention period, it drew praise for that reform from European Commission privacy regulators and the press.
The only problem is that Google's announcement was just a ploy to deflect criticism and its web search archives will still contain data identifying individuals' online search activity for at least 18 months.
>>>>____Now, Google's clarification of its recent announcement states that it will change "some" — but by implication less than eight — IP address bits that it retains after only nine months. It says that it will still strip the last eight bits off the IP addresses it retains after 18 months.
But Google has not said anything about anonymising the cookie identifiers it retains in its logs after nine months have elapsed.
Changing a few bits in users' IP addresses means nothing if Google doesn't also clear or non-reversibly encrypt its users' cookie identifiers at the same time to render their search records truly anonymous.
The cookies Google presents to web browsers reportedly persist for two years, and their expiration dates are reportedly updated every time a user visits a website run by Google." Link to Original Source
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