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You are mostly correct. According to an Ars Technica article from last year [1]: * Google anonymizes the last octect of your IP address after 9 months. (So the
by nyellin 16y ago
You are mostly correct. According to an Ars Technica article from last year [1]:
* Google anonymizes the last octect of your IP address after 9 months. (So there are 254 possible IP addresses for each search.)
* The search cookie is kept intact for 36 months (3 years).
When I posted before, I incorrectly remembered reading that the search cookie is stored forever. Thanks for catching my mistake.
Edit: Regarding the sources, I think that Google's FAQ deliberately skimps on the details. I posted the AOL link because it is a good example of what can happen when search data is leaked.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/google-keeps-your-data-to-learn-from-good-guys-fight-off-bad-guys.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/google-keeps...
- magicalist 16y agoam I missing something with that 36 months? from the ars article: "After 18 months, Google anonymizes the unique cookie data stored in these logs." a 2.5 year old searchengineland article also says they use a hash function using keys that are discarded every day, which means that search streams will be 24 hours long apiece: http://searchengineland.com/anonymizing-googles-server-log-data-hows-it-going-15036 http://searchengineland.com/anonymizing-googles-server-log-d...
- nyellin 16y agoUrgh. I was severely sleep deprived last night and I am starting to feel that I shouldn't have posted at all. You are correct about 18 months.