Google Promises Privacy Fix for Chrome Browser

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The move comes as privacy advocates here and in Europe expressedconcern that the browser had the potential to give Google a way totrack even more of users' online behavior and create rich profilesof them.
Jane Horvath, Google's senior privacy counsel, said that thecompany would be anonymizing the Internet Protocol address and thecookies that track users when they type search terms or Web pagesinto Chrome's Omnibox, an all-in-one search and address bar.
She said Google also would anonymize the IP addresses associatedwith search queries typed in by users into Google's standard searchbar nine months after they have been collected. "This really justillustrates how seriously we do take data anonymization," Horvathsaid.
But Google, which already dominates the Internet search and onlineadvertising fields, still needs to be more forthcoming about itsdata collection practices, privacy advocates said.
"My main concern is the ability to collect users' Webaddresses, and therefore your complete surfing on the Web could betracked," Germany's data protection commissioner, PeterSchaar, said of Chrome. "The Web is, in fact, a second life. Avirtual mirror of one's real life, with information about one'sinterests, activities, perhaps sexual orientation."
Schaar said that yesterday his office began an inquiry into thebrowser to determine whether Google was collecting and correlatingpersonal data in violation of German data protection law.
"We're pretty confident that what he'll find is it's a verywell-designed product," Horvath said.
In Europe, unlike in the United States, IP addresses in most casesare considered personal data because they can be traced back to anindividual through the Internet service provider, said Schaar, whountil last spring chaired the Article 29 Working Party, theEuropean data protection commission.
On Saturday, the German Federal Office for Information Securityissued a warning against use of the browser, Schaar said. Horvath,however, said that no such warning had been issued.
Google's Chrome is set up by default to collect about 2 percent of all keystrokestyped into its Omnibox -- whether Web page addresses or searchterms, Horvath said. One percent is comprised of all the keystrokesfor 1 percent of computer users selected randomly, each day, shesaid. Google also collects 1 percent of all the keystrokes typedinto the Omnibox each day.
She said that the data collected may be retained "forever" to helpGoogle refine its ability to suggest Web pages the user is seeking.But, she said, the IP address and cookie -- a string of numbersthat can be used to track a computer user online -- associated withthe data will be anonymized so that "there will be no way toconnect it back to the individual."
Christine Chen, a Google spokeswoman, said yesterday that the exactmethod of anonymization had not been settled upon yet.
Alissa Cooper, chief computer scientist at the Center for Democracy& Technology, said, "If all they're doing is removinga portion of the IP address, I don't think it really renders all oftheir logs anonymous. If you're truly anonymizing it so there is noIP address, no cookie, and no identifying information in the logitself, then there's significantly less privacy concern."