While the EU seems pleased with Google's announcement that it will anonymize user search data after 9 months (instead of 18), it would be wise to look a bit closer at Google's anonymization techniques. It seems that Google is just making small changes to the IP address that in reality do very little to protect the privacy of a searcher.

Google's technique consists primarily of masking a few bits of the searcher's IP address--but it leaves the personally identifying cookie information intact. Doesn't sound like much of a commitment to privacy. For a more detailed explanation, check out the Google Subnet blog here.

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