Yahoo! Shortens Data Retention Period

[JMcEntegart]

A little while back Google announced that it was reducing the amount of time before it anonymizes users’ data in half, meaning your search data would only be associated with your IP address for nine months before being made anonymous.

Yahoo! Shortens Data Retention Period : Read more

 

[Tindytim]

And why does Google need the IP addresses in order to correlate the information?

Seems odd to me.

 

[hellwig]

Oh Tindytim, they need your IP address to better tie their on-page ads to your last 18 months of searches. By knowing that 18-months ago you searched for summer vacation destinations, they can provide better ads for your latest query on cold remedies. Google is a lot smarter than we, the simple computer users, so we have to trust they know better than we do.

To be more serious, I also don't understand why they need IPs. They process millions of queries and ads a second, so I can't imagine any single user could do anything to scew their algorithms in any meaningful way. I mean sure, they need to make sure that someone isn't scamming their Ads by sending thousands of clicks a second to a competitors link, but why they need to maintain that information for more than a day is unknown to me.

 

[Claimintru]

IP's are used for regional datamining. Makes it easier to monitor whats going on , and has been going on in specific areas of the nation/world

 

[zak_mckraken]

For that purpose they can only keep the first couple of digits from the IP. 192.168.0.X or even 192.168.X.X for examples.

 

[Tindytim]

IP's are used for regional datamining. Makes it easier to monitor whats going on , and has been going on in specific areas of the nation/world

So they couldn't just keep the relevant information, and get rid of what's not needed? As in keeping some regional information, and deleting the IPs?

 

[zodiacfml]

i have to agree with google.
i think yahoo's move is just an excuse for something, like reducing cost or jobs. keeping a log of millions of users for a long time is surely expensive.