[privacy] Google Changes Cookie Policy But Privacy Effect is Small

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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I post this because I'm sick of people saying this is major
privacy "win"... it is not. 

Via Threat Level.

[snip]

Google is modifying how it keeps track of users via cookies, by setting
cookies to expire in two years if a user doesn't return and auto-extending
cookie length for active users, according to a policy change announced by
Google's Global Policy Counsel Peter Fleischer on Monday. Currently Google
sets their cookies to expire sometime in the 2030s, a time period which
Fleischer said was chosen to keep users from losing preferences such as how
many search results to see on a page at a random time.

In reality, the change doesn't make much of a difference. People who go two
years between Google searches on a given browser will have their old
queries de-linked from their new ones. Google users who do not occasionally
destroy their cookies will continue to have their entire search history
recorded for posterity and potential subpoenas.

[snip]

More:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/google-changes-.html

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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