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We're still expected to simply trust that they're sufficiently anonymized Actually Google fought in court to make sure that it didn't have to anonymize its log
by alain94040 17y ago
We're still expected to simply trust that they're sufficiently anonymized
Actually Google fought in court to make sure that it didn't have to anonymize its logs, ever. So it's a safe bet to assume that your logs are not anonymized.
- stse 17y agoI've also got that impression, partially from this answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LVSnoJZHmM#t=21m33s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LVSnoJZHmM#t=21m33s
- warp 17y agoAccording to the page linked in the parent: We anonymize this log data by removing part of the IP address (after 9 months) and cookie information (after 18 months).
- alain94040 17y agoSorry, I wasn't clear. After 18 months, they don't keep the original IP anymore, that is correct, but they can still cross-reference everything. Which means that in practice, they can still figure out who you are, they haven't lost any "connectivity" of the data. But to make regulators happy, after 18 months, they can't spit out your raw IP addresses. Feel better now?
- stingraycharles 17y agoThat makes me wonder what "anonymous" actually means. As I understand it, Google anonymizing the logs in fact means they don't store any information that can lead directly back to you: as in, based on a single log file, they couldn't say who you are. In the greater context of things, however, it is not anonymous: based on your previous access patterns, and your current (< 18 months) access patterns, they could link your anonymized logs with your unanonymized logs. Is that still anonymous then ? This all reminds me of some research from Germany I heard about a few years ago: basically, if you have someone's ZIP code, age, gender and education, you can get a > 99% accuracy resolving who this person is in real life.