Google explains privacy policy on YouTube
Published: 09 Aug 2007 15:10 BST
Google has posted a video on YouTube that explains aspects of its privacy policy.
Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a blog post on Wednesday that Google had launched the video to explain "cookies, IP addresses, and logs" to "non-techies". YouTube is owned by Google.
ZDNet.co.uk understands that Google's privacy video is part of an attempt by the search giant to allay EU privacy concerns.
However, the official Google line is that an explanation of server logs and cookies is necessary in the interests of "transparency, and to empower you to make informed decisions about how you want to use our services".
In the video, entitled "Google Privacy Policy: Plain and Simple", Maile Ohye, a senior support engineer, says: "To improve [Google] search results, as well as maintain security and prevent fraud, we remember some basic information about searches. Without this information, our search wouldn't work as well as it does or be as secure."
The security reasons for retaining server logs are not raised in the video. However, a Google spokesperson said: "By being able to look at data trends over time, Google is better able to identify hacking attempts against Google systems and those of our users."
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Fleischer has been unwilling to divulge any more information about Google security practices in the past, so as not to undermine those practices.
The video and Fleischer's Google blog post make no reference to EU privacy concerns over Google's server log retention period.
The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in May published a letter saying it was concerned that the "storage period of 18 to 24 months on the basis indicated by Google thus far does not seem to meet the requirements of the European legal data-protection framework." The watchdog has also said that Google's cookie-retention period is "still too long", despite having been reduced to two years.
Besides Google, the EU is to also probe other major search engines' log-retention policies.
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