Google considers longer retention of search data

Google is considering to keep user’s search for more than 18 months, one of the firm’s key executives has said. Currently, search giant anonymises a user’s search history after 18 months.

Vice-president of Google Search, Marissa Mayer said the firm would allow to users opt in to having their data held for longer. Google currently provides choose-in personalised search facility, which helps to improve the accuracy of results.

Ms Mayer said in Paris: “Personalised search tracks and shows you in your search history the clicks and trends of your searches.”

“Based on what we see as your searching pattern it ultimately can enhance your result. There’s a simple way to turn it on and off. We will only use the data that a user gives us to target personalised search.”

She said: “We have declared that we keep our records of searches for 18 months. We think that this was a good compromise and also something which benefited our users. Eighteen months is sufficient to do a good job of personalising so we think that personalised search will continue and will be successful. At the same time it protects our users’ privacy as we anonymise the logs after 18 months.”

Ms Mayer said that speed of search results was becoming an increasingly important factor.

“We have continually tried to improve our speed and that speed has yielded more and more searches.”

“Our goal is to have a Google search as fast as a light beam to and from our data centres from your location.”