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According 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 mon

• alain94040 17y ago
  Sorry, 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 ago
    That 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.