Search Engines Must Comply With Strict EU Privacy Rules (Mashable!)

What goes in the US doesn’t necessarily carry over to the European Union. European data privacy regulators issued a short report which says that all internet search engines, even those based outside Europe, must comply with EU privacy rules. Does this include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo? Yup. As the EU folks put it, “Search engines fall under the EU data protection directive if there are controllers collecting users’ IP addresses or search history information, and therefore have to comply with relevant provisions.”

These rules include users’ consent to their data being collected, as well as giving users the ability to object to or verify their personal information. The regulators, known under the “Article 29 Working Party” moniker, are working on a more detailed report; it will be interesting how it pans out, because users, for example, at this time don’t really have a good way of making Google change their personal data.

Reacting to the short report, Google gave the standard “we’re working with everyone to improve privacy online for all users” answer; Yahoo didn’t comment, while Microsoft said that companies should remove the IP address from saved information. The full report by the Article 29 Working Party is due in April.