With this law in place, people providing web/ phone services are now required to keep their website access logs, or their phone call logs, for half a year. This data can then be used by the authorities – police and secret services – if they suspect it may help in important criminal investigations, or when online crimes are committed. Self-proclaimed goal is to fight e.g. attacks against European cities, like the London or Madrid bombings. Some people now want to stop this law in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, which can overrule what is deemed anti-constitutional.

Now, the data you are required to keep doesn’t by itself contain the contents of the transmitted data, e.g. the words spoken in a phone call. It is mostly restricted to such things as the IP address, date and time of when e.g. an email account is accessed, or data like the email address of sender and recipients, according to Spiegel.de. However, some privacy experts, according to Tagesschau.de, say that with the connection data in hand, you can then locate other data, including sometimes the content of messages.

Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer – who also has a blog – previously called such laws a “harsh attack on privacy” a while ago. He even went as far as saying “As a last fallback we will close Google Mail in Germany” should these laws be passed. Peter added that “Many users around the globe make use of this anonymity to defend themselves from spam, or government repression of free speech … If the web community won’t trust us with handling their data with great care, we’ll go down in no time.” He also said that users of Gmail may simply switch to foreign email service providers anyway to better protect their privacy (if I remember correctly, Google later somewhat back-pedaled from these statements as they were given in an interview in German Wirtschaftswoche).

On the surface, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior agrees with Google. To quote from their website:

Only if people have confidence in data protection on the Internet, can the information society unfold its advantages. For this reason, the Federal Government is undertaking a fundamental revision of German data protection legislation. The aim is efficient data protection requiring as little control effort as possible.

Also, they say:

Law enforcement activities must be adapted to the dynamics of technological developments and the boundlessness of technology and networks. On the one hand, they must safeguard effective prevention and prosecution of new criminal offences, while on the otherhand [sic], utilize the electronic options available for law enforcement, without infringing upon citizens’ rights of freedom.

In other, related news, minister of interior Schäuble was pushing for a law to allow secret tools – trojans – to be installed on user’s computers for online supervision**. Also, according to Tagesschau.de, a recent case revealed that some German journalists’ and lawyers’ phone calls had been secretly tapped by the police as they were talking to informations/ clients (these people were allegedly extreme left-wing, and the talks were in relation to the then upcoming G8 conference).

*The German word here is “Vorratsdatenspeicherung,” an issue heavily discussed in German mainstream/ blog news.

**Coined “Bundestrojaner” or “Online-Durchsuchung” in Germany. The more official name for such tools is “Remote Forensic Software,” as Wikipedia explains.

[Thanks Hebbet! Photo by Bundesregierung.de from a video where Schäuble introduced the new biometric data as part of the travel pass.]

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Your Email Campaign Needs Work

The ’2007 Retail Email Marketing Study’ by Silverpop noted how email customers spend more online than their non-email counterparts. Those same email customers spend more on impulse, and are more likely to pass along the email promotions they receive.

“Clearly there’s value in fine-tuning email marketing programs to generate higher response rates and greater financial returns,” said Silverpop managing director Mike Weston.

One of the easiest things an online entrepreneur can do is capture the email address, and just that, for starters. List growth concerns everyone, but burying an opt-in box within a site, or asking for loads of personal details up front, don’t help improve that growth.

Make it easy for people to get onto an email list. “A robust email program can gather additional data from subscribers after marketers convince them of the value they receive from the relationship,” said Weston.

Retailers should make it just as easy to opt out of a list. This can be done effectively with modern marketing solutions, but the crafty marketer will send people to a ‘change subscriptions’ preference page, giving the person choices for alternative emails along with the choice to unsubscribe.

The persistent threat of malicious or intrusive code via images cause people to block them from displaying automatically in email clients. Web-based email systems like Google’s Gmail and Yahoo Mail do this by default, unless the person changes a preference for a particular sender.

That blocking has caused the “postcard-style” layout to fall out of favor in email marketing. Newsletter formats with a mixture of text and art can communicate the marketer’s message whether or not images have been blocked.

Email marketing may seem so quaint compared with newer formats that some may underestimate it.

Although figures from eMarketer based on Interactive Advertising Bureau data indicate email marketing spending will grow to $616 million by 2011, a lot more could be spent on the channel.

“One key factor is how e-mail is typically perceived and implemented,” David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst, said in a statement. “Most companies typically see e-mail marketing as a low-cost medium.”

That could mean businesses feel they won’t get the big returns a flashier campaign could draw. Email has the ability to help develop long-term, returning customers. Everyone likes to pull in new customers, but the real profitability comes from loyal returnees who keep coming back to spend.

Search providers had the best retention rates, with an average of 71 percent of June visitors at home retuning in July among the three most popular search engines. Google search led with a retention rate of 79 percent, Yahoo Search was second at 69 percent and MSN/Windows Live Search had 65 percent. Visitor retention rates were a little higher with the work audience, who had an average of 76 percent among the three leading search providers.

Nielsen noted that a large portion of visitors went to more than one of the three search sites in July. MSN/Windows Live Search had the highest audience overlap with 84 percent of its unique visitors also going to Google, Yahoo or both. Yahoo had a 78 percent audience overlap with Google and MSN. Google had a 63 percent audience overlap with one or both of its competitors.

"These search providers are doing a good job of bringing their visitors back month after month, which is an important sign of the health of their customer relationships and a measure with significant financial implications, given the expense of acquiring new customers," said Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

The most popular three sites in the career development category were CareerBulider, Monster and Yahoo HotJobs. They had an average month- over- month retention rate of 38 percent at home and at work it was 44 percent. Monster.com had the most audience overlap with the other two, at 50 percent. Yahoo had a 45 percent overlap, while CareerBuilder was 34 percent.

The top sites in the multi-category travel, Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, had the lowest average month- over- month at home visitor retention rates at 31 percent. At work it was a little higher at 35 percent. Overlap was similar between the three sites at 59, 58 and 51 percent for Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, respectively.

"Search is a daily online activity for most Web users, so search providers can rely to a certain extent on frequency of use as a driver of repeat visitation," said Cassar.

"Career development and travel sites are used less frequently, so their challenge is to be top of mind when it comes time to look for a new career opportunity or plan a trip."

Ask.com will soon be implementing a new product called AskEraser that will make sure that your search history is not retained by Ask.com

Once you choose to use AskEraser, your privacy setttings will be indicated on the Ask.com search engine results pages. You will always know the privacy status of your searches.

Ask.com has typically been very committed to being open and transparent about how your search data is used; and they realize that some people want enhanced privacy–thus they’re launching AskEraser soon.

To come up with enhanced privacy features and tools, Ask.com talked with privacy advocates at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) as part of their process of developing privacy tools that gives use, the Ask.com users, the ability to better control our search experience. The results of this research is AskEraser.

As a result of the launching of AskEraser, Ask.com will be the only major search engine to commit to giving their users the control to prevent retention of their search history. AskEraser is expected to be deployed on Ask.com in the U.S. and U.K. by the end of the year, and worldwide early next year.

According to Ask.com, in conjunction with the availability of AskEraser, Ask.com will also launch a new data retention standard that will completely disassociate your search history from a your IP address or cookie information after 18 months.

There’s several other sites talking about AskEraser today, including:

AskEraser – Ask.com allows you to delete all your search history

Ask.com To Launch AskEraser To Erase Search History & New Data Retention Policy

Ask.com First Major Search Engine to Allow Deletion of All User Search History

AskEraser: Search Anonymously With Ask.com

Ask.com To Launch AskEraser To Erase Search History and New Data Retention Policy

ASK Eraser to “Erase” User’s Search History

Ask.com to Give People Unmatched Privacy Control

Ask.com adds privacy control feature

Ask to allow anonymous Web search

Ask.com to Allow Users Control Their Privacy

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Google To Watchdog: Mind Your Own Business

Data protection and data retention occupy different parts of the overall online security picture. When the Article 29 Working Party in Europe expressed its concerns about data retention, Google shifted its retention policy to an 18 month period, after which it would anonymize the data.

As for the rest of the group’s views on data retention, Fleischer politely suggested in an OUT-LAW.com podcast excerpted by The Register that Article 29 should stick to its data protection mandate:

“Remember the Data Retention Directive comes out of the security side of government, not the data protection side,” said Fleischer. “So it’s interesting to me to hear what an official from the data protection world thinks about data retention, but it’s like asking somebody who works for the railroad what they think of airline regulation. It’s just not their field.”

EU officials seem to agree:

“The Data Retention Directive applies only to providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communication networks and not to search engine systems,” Philippos Mitletton, who works for the European Commission’s Data Protection Unit, which itself is represented on the Article 29 Working Party, told OUT-LAW.COM. “Accordingly, Google is not subject to this Directive as far as it concerns the search engine part of its applications and has no obligations thereof,” he said.

Google intends to stick to its data retention plans. Fleischer said in the interview that Google would adhere to the 18 month retention even if the EU did away with its Data Retention Directive.

I’d like to direct a hat tip towards Barry Schwartz for this one, but the original source (as Schwartz notes) is Paul Meller of the IDG News Service.  “European data protection officials are expanding their examination of the impact search engines have on privacy, after initially targeting Google Inc. last month,” Meller stated.

And though information is scarce, this isn’t hearsay or a rumor – Meller managed to get an interview with European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx, who told him, “A panel of European data protection officials called the Article 29 Working Group decided Wednesday to request information from Google’s rivals amid concerns that search engines are holding onto information about the people who use them for too long.”

Google’s leaders might get a laugh out of this (turnabout being fair play and all that), but they’d probably much rather the EU had just dropped the whole matter; a good deal of negative publicity followed the EU’s original interactions with Google.

Yahoo and Microsoft on the other hand . . . well, it’s not likely that they’re finding this the least bit humorous.

Privacy International placed Google at the bottom of the list among its major competitors, saying Google was "hostile" toward privacy. Danny Sullivan and Google’s Matt Cutts were both quick to come to Google’s defense. Sullivan called PI’s study "haphazard."

On Monday, Fleischer didn’t mention PI at all, but wrote at the Google Blog about the working relationship the company has with Article 29, beginning with a reiteration of Google’s privacy track record.

(It’s easy to imagine Fleischer with his tongue stuck out as he writes about resisting government subpoenas, user controls and choices, and by noting the Working Party’s praise of the company for its "readiness to consult" – contrasted, of course, with the competition.)

Fleischer announced Google’s new policy of anonymizing server logs after 18 months, shortening the previous policy of 18-24 months. Various government pressures, he notes, may require the company to return to the 24-month version.

It’s interesting that he chose to publish the company’s response to the Working Party rather than PI, especially given the timing. His post was in response to the Working Party’s letter asking the company to justify its data retention policies, feeling that the 24-month standard was too long.

Fleischer enumerates the justification this way:

·    _{to improve our search algorithms for the benefit of users
·    to defend our systems from malicious access and exploitation attempts
·    to maintain the integrity of our systems by fighting click fraud and web spam
·    to protect our users from threats like spam and phishing
·    to respond to valid legal orders from law enforcement as they investigate and prosecute serious crimes like child exploitation; and
·    to comply with data retention legal obligations.}

That last one, regarding legal obligations, brings to light the struggles Google faces on an international level. In Fleischer’s six-page letter, he notes the Enron-inspired Sarbanes-Oxley law, and both German and US pressure to retain data for 24 months, indicating Google’s desire but potential inability to comply with its own newly-instituted retention policy.

From the letter:

Thus, the discussion regarding the right retention period is in fact a global discussion. Google is a U.S. company and we respect U.S. laws — but we are also a global company, doing business across Europe and across the world, and we recognize the need to respect the laws of the countries in which we do business. We are therefore committed to data protection principles that meet the expectations of our users in Europe and across the globe….

There is no single right answer to the question of how long server logs should be retained.

 Note again, who is not mentioned. Yahoo has had its run-ins with China already. It’s entirely possible Google will be called on to turn over data to the Communist government to track down dissenters.

Regardless of international nuances and pressures, the anonymizing promise is an nice addition to Fleischer’s thumb-biting toward PI. The company says the anonymization of logs will not be reversible, meaning that no one, not even Google he says, will be able to read identifying information once logs data has been anonymized.

EU Challenges Google On Data Retention

The Article 29 Working Group advises the European Union on data protection issues. They are not happy with the length of time Google plans to retain search information in their databases.

The Financial Times said Google’s desire to keep that data for as long as 24 months may run counter to privacy laws in the EU. It’s a lot shorter than the indefinite time Google has kept search data prior to their policy change.

Information on what people search for could be used to construct a pretty accurate profile of an individual. The potential for an epic scale invasion of privacy exists, should a government or a malicious party manage to grab that information.

It is unlikely an external attack would be able to breach Google’s security, as the company prizes that information even more than the people who contribute it. Government intervention is another matter, and Google has already fought one battle with the Justice Department over its try at grabbing a huge amount of that data.

Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer pointed out to the Times that Yahoo and Microsoft have not publicly announced any limits to their search data retention. Fleischer previously wrote on Google’s official blog that “since these laws do not yet exist, and are only now being proposed and debated, it is too early to know the final retention time periods, the jurisdictional impact, and the scope of applicability.”

What struck me and other readers the most was the significant gap between Google and Yahoo; Yahoo beat Google by a landslide. In addition, MySpace’s position at the top is a perfect example of how social media marketing is taking a leading edge in online advertising space.

According to Jay Meattle of Compete.com the data was grabbed from “multiple data sources, including ISPs, ASPs, Opt-In Panels and the Compete Toolbar. ” Jay also noted that he and the compete.com team “strongly believe in our multiple data source strategy and its ability to detect and correct for bias across diverse data sources to ensure accurate U.S. projections.”

So just how seriously should we take this data? I expect it should be taken with some salt considering a good chunk of the data was gathered using the compete.com toolbar which appears to place a significant emphasis on searching Yahoo. That said, I find it encouraging to see Yahoo potentially taking leadership on the web – at least in one form.

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Ross Dunn is the CEO and founder of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc., an SEO firm that has been providing expert services since 1997. Rosss considerable experience in the world of search has made him a respected writer for countless publications and an SEO consultant for small business and Fortune 500 web properties.