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EU data guardians: search engines must obey our rules

Andrew Bolton

I, ronnie? 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 14:29 GMT

This is the same political corpse, sorry, corpus, that wants to go after filesharers via IP number tracking?

Lyndon Hills

Other applications that log ip? 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 14:32 GMT

Why only search engines? Most web servers, by default, log visits including ip address and timestamp so are these also covered? These activities sound a little like what would be required to implement the 'three strikes' policy on file-sharing - how else is your isp to police your internet use if not by logging, and retaining, the data?

TeeCee

Phase 2. 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 15:32 GMT

Coat

Once they have their feet under this particular table, I foresee a day when any EU based search engine will return no results when certain keywords are used together.

E.g: "EU commission" and "nepotism", "EU" and "fraud", "European parliament" and "gravy train", "EU constitution^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htreaty" and "bog paper", "MEP" and "expenses", "Strasbourg" and "beano".

Coat and can I have a receipt itemised as "working lunch for three" please?

Henry Cobb

Cookie monster 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 15:32 GMT

Paris Hilton

Since Google, MSN and Yahoo! have cookie driven mail and group accounts, the cookies sent while doing searches on their platforms should be enough to tie users to their accounts, even if IP addresses are scrubbed from search engine records.

-HJC

Paris, because I'd love to get my hands on her cookies.

Anonymous Coward

So change the search engine? 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 17:09 GMT

Paris Hilton

So that it doesn't collect user's IP addresses and search history. I know the marketing droids won't like it but gives a f%%%.

SpitefulGOD

In the great scheme of things 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 21:23 GMT

Gates Halo

Probably end up as a MS only bash, Google excempt.

Peter Fairbrother

google.com and google.co.uk 

Posted Friday 22nd February 2008 23:06 GMT

They will find it hard to make this effective.

When you make a google search through google.com, perhaps through the default search box on your browser, if you are thought by Google to be in the UK (for instance) it redirects from google.com to google.co.uk. Fair enough perhaps, though the results are different, but I won't get into that here.

The point is that the search terms go through (I presume) google.com in the US, and thereby leave EU data protection jurisdiction.

I imagine google.co.uk is an EU/UK subsidiary of google.com, and as such would comply with any EU data protection laws - but even if that happens the default may be to go through google.com.

You have been warned...

Peter Fairbrother

re google.com and google.co.uk 

Posted Saturday 23rd February 2008 17:29 GMT

I wrote:

"I imagine google.co.uk is an EU/UK subsidiary of google.com"

My imagination was getting away with me - google.co.uk is hosted in the US. Sorry.

Anonymous Coward

Phorm getting users' traffic data from ISPs 

Posted Saturday 23rd February 2008 17:29 GMT

VirginMedia, BT & TalkTalk are planning on giving their users' traffic data (browsing preferences, etc) to a company called Phorm (you may remember them from the Apropos rootkit) so that they can deliver targetted ads to their customers.

Phorm are a US company, but have an office in the UK so, presumably, this data will have to be covered by the EU DP laws?

Martin Budden

more than just search engines? 

Posted Monday 25th February 2008 09:01 GMT

will this also apply to MyFaceSpaceBook?

Andy S

re: Phorm getting users' traffic data from ISPs 

Posted Monday 25th February 2008 11:32 GMT

I always though that, due to the US's unbelievebly lax data security laws, the UK law required a persons express permission before transferring any personal data to the US.

Amazon have fallen foul of this in the past, by automatically signing people up to Amazon.com when they sign up for Amazon.co.uk.