Think about setting aside issues related to results and advertising for a moment; should better privacy standards be enough to make any given search engine your favorite? Yahoo no doubt wants everyone to consider this question very carefully, as a new move has made it the leader in terms of short data retention policies.
Consider the competition: Google’s holding onto info for nine months. Microsoft’s talking about doing it for six. Now, Yahoo’s stepped way in front of the pack by committing to the anonymization of log data after just three months. Stats related to page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks will be affected in addition to search stuff.
Anne Toth, the Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy at Yahoo, explained in a statement, “In our world of customized online services, responsible use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining user trust. We know that our users expect relevant and compelling content and advertising when they visit Yahoo, but they also want assurances that we are focused on protecting their privacy.”
And in regards to search results and advertising – we know they can’t be ignored, after all – Toth then continued, “This policy represents Yahoo’s assessment of the minimum amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted relationship with users.” Which (correctly or not) implies that Google and Microsoft are either a bit incompetent or just unwilling to part with user stats.
On a related note, Yahoo recently made a top 20 list of trusted U.S. companies, even as Google fell off of it.
