Google Joins EU Privacy Commission Advisory Group
December 30, 2008
Out-Law.com here reported that Google’s privacy law expert has snagged a seat on a committee which will provide input to the European Commission about data protection. You can read the story here. For me the most important comment in the story was:
Google prompted a debate on retention when it announced it would no longer keep logs indefinitely, but would delete them after 18 months. Data protection authorities argued that logs should be kept for no longer than six months. Google eventually conceded that the EU’s Data Retention Directive did not apply to the information, and has said that it will now only keep records for nine months.
The thought that I had was, “Why keep them any longer than necessary?” The GOOG crunches the data in near real time, tokenizes it, and stuff the outputs of its processes into its nifty data management system. Inside the GOOG, various systems and methods grind away, feeding outputs into other Google operations. The 18 months, the nine months, even the six months of retention are red herrings. The GOOG zooms through data so chopping “months” down may be a negotiating tactic. In my experience with government and quasi government advisory bodies, pertinent facts and solid technical knowledge can be as hard to find as a pig in the hollow who volunteers to become a Kentucky ham.
Stephen Arnold, December 30, 2008
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