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Data Mining Still Going Strong Under New Yahoo Privacy Policy

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

On Wednesday, Yahoo was hailed as a privacy leader among the major search engines: It said it would retain individual user data for only three months, down from 13 months. Google keeps individualized search data of its users for nine months and Microsoft for 18 months.

Privacy groups point out that the change is a good thing if Yahoo lives up to its word. Perhaps only three months' worth of one's search queries and web clicks could be exposed under a data breach, or handed over to the authorities with a warrant.

But Yahoo isn't giving up anything under the plan: Individual internet web surfers' browsing habits will continue to be analyzed under a microscope in order to target web users with ads for products they are likely to purchase.

A recent Yahoo paper, " Squeeze Every Drop of Meaning from Data," reveals a lot about its data mining. "We build models to describe behaviour most likely to lead to an ad response(ppt)," the company says in a British presentation.

"If you look under the hood, they're still collecting massive amounts of behavioral profiling data," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Yahoo lost nothing."

Yahoo spokeswoman Kelley Benander said Yahoo is squeezing every drop of information out of its users' data in a shorter period of time. It moved to retain user data to three months, she said in a telephone interview, because that was the "minimum threshold" of time for the company to complete its data mining.

In announcing the new policy, Yahoo wanted to make that point clear to advertisers. "Users won't see a difference in their experience with Yahoo! Products or services, and advertisers will continue to leverage our innovative interest-based advertising systems to deliver the most relevant adsto those users," the search engine said in a statement.

See Also:

• Data-Mining for Terrorists Not 'Feasible,' DHS-Funded Study Finds ...
• Data Mining Report
• State Can Ban Prescription Data Mining, Appeals Court Rules ...
• U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft
• Phone and Email Data-Mining Used in War on Drugs, Too
• DHS Data Mining Program Suspended After Evading Privacy Review ...
• Verizon and Government Seek Dismissal of Data-Mining Programs on ...
• Rogue FBI Letters Hint at Phone Companies' Own Data Mining ...
• Data Mining Disclosure Bill Moves Forward
• Data-Mining the EFF and ATT Legal Papers
• Spy Chief's Crazy Interview Can't Save Anti-Data Mining Suit, Feds ...

Full post as published by Threat Level on December 18, 2008 (boomark / email).