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Our Blogs The BeerFiles Google: And so the cookie crumbles - or not!
Our Blogs The BeerFiles Google: And so the cookie crumbles - or not! | Google: And so the cookie crumbles - or not! |
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| Written by Stan Beer | |
| Wednesday, 18 July 2007 | |
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Under pressure from privacy advocates, however, Google has announced a change to its cookie retention policy which will mean that Google will now only keep the cookies active for two years after they will expire and be deleted. The catch is, however, that Google will automatically renew the cookies each time a user accesses a Google service. A user would have to not use a Google service for two years to get their cookies deleted. Since most web surfers use at least some Google services, given Google is the big Kahuna of search and and has a growing list of Web 2.0 services, the effect will be that Google will still maintain exactly the same amount of private data on its users for an indefinite period. In effect, the change in policy may have some PR value for Google and enable the company to claim that it addressing the concerns of the EU and other privacy advocates. However, Google has merely changed the rules to suit itself and the policy change will have no tangible impact on the level and extent of data intelligence the search company retains on its user base. Whether the cosmetic change to Google's cookies policy will impress privacy regulators and advocates remains to be seen. However, a betting person would have to say that Google will have to come up with something better than this to appease its detractors.
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