Google has not only opened up on how often the world's governments request
user data stored on its servers. It's come awfully close to acknowledging that
it doesn't actually "anonymize" your IP address after 9 months.
As noticed by longtime Google critic Chris Soghoian - now a technical advisor
for the US Federal Trade Commission's Division of Privacy and Identity
Protection - Google has departed from the usual false claims of anonymization to
say that after 9 months, it "obfuscates" your IP. At the very least, this new
language isn't as misleading as the old.
An unnamed Googler recently gave an interview to Privacy International over
the company's decision to release data on government requests for your private
information, and the new language appeared when he or she was asked how long the
company retains unique identifiers.
