Microsoft offered Monday to observe a European privacy panel’s request to reduce the length of time it kept search queries made by individuals to six months if its rivals, Yahoo and Google, did the same.
Google and Yahoo, in separate statements, said they were unwilling for now to change their policies.
Microsoft said it made the offer in a letter to the Article 29 Working Party, a European Commission advisory panel comprised of data protection commissioners from each of its 27 member countries. In April, the panel recommended that search engines kept user logs no longer than six months before making the data untraceable.
Microsoft’s MSN Live Search currently retains search data for 18 months. Yahoo keeps data for 13 months and Google for 9 months. The advisory panel was to meet Tuesday and Wednesday but its members are postponing a decision on whether to take any action against the companies until at least February, when the companies are to make presentations before the panel.
John Vassallo, an attorney for Microsoft, said Microsoft was not willing to act alone because doing so would create a commercial disadvantage.
“We support the commissioners’ recommendations but are asking them to ensure these are uniformly observed,” said Vassallo, who is based in Brussels. “Otherwise, to do so unilaterally would put us at a disadvantage.”
Search engine practices are one area in which cutting-edge Web technology is coming into conflict with stricter European privacy rules. German and Swiss officials have also expressed concerns about the Google Street View map technology, which puts photographic street images on the Web without the consent of property owners, which violates privacy laws in those countries.
In the debate about data retention, search engines have said that they need more time to process data to enhance the performance of the search engines. Privacy advocates say the companies…