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about two weeks ago, in a post titled ‘How to Compete with Google Search‘, i explored how privacy was one of google’s weaknesses and and how other search engines were using offerings of better privacy options to compete with the industry leader.

now, further research by the center for democracy and technology confirms this and expands on my initial analysis by concluding that the recent makeovers in the privacy policies of the major search engines are in fact a result of competition between the big five.

That the search engines are now competing to provide the best privacy protections is great news for users, who will hopefully see a continuing expansion of choices and controls offered to them for managing the information they share over the Internet.

the report compares the changes in the privacy policies of the major search engines as detailed in their announcements and illustrates the results in a chart showing what information is retained, how long it is retained for, and what the user can do to have the information removed. furthermore, the report outlines recommendations for increased user control and safeguarding privacy in the long-run.

the 5-page pdf report is a short and interesting read.