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The European Union's privacy group said it would take three more months to reach a decision on whether Google and other search engines are violating EU privacy laws.

The EU watchdog group said earlier this year that Google was not complying with EU privacy and that it was broadening its investigation in June to include other search engines.

"We have written to Google to say that we are continuing our work, that it is not limited to Google, and that we will adopt an opinion at the beginning of 2008," an official with the Article 29 Committee said according to Reuters. "We want to adopt a comprehensive opinion, saying how long they can keep data, and which ones," the official said.

When users perform searches, Google collects information about their tastes and interests that could be passed on to third parties such as marketers or advertisers. Google maintains that it does not reveal user information to third parties.

Google told the EU group in June that it was willing to shorten the amount of time it kept user data to 18 months.

The watchdog group advises the EU on privacy issues and has no legal power and its recommendations do not have to be followed.