EU hails Google decision to dump user data after 18 months

(LUXEMBOURG) - The European Union welcomed Wednesday a pledge by the operators of Internet search engine Google to remove information about its users after 18 months to meet European demands.

"It is indeed a good step," EU Justice Minister Franco Frattini said on the sidelines of a meeting of European justice ministers in Luxembourg.

"Retention of personal data was from the very beginning one concern of the European Commission and now it is good to see Google trying to meet our expectations," he said.

Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer revealed the Mountain View, California, firm's policy change late Monday in a letter to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in Belgium.

Fleischer's message was a response to a demand by Article 29 that Google justify why it does not conform to the Resolution on Privacy Protection and Search Engines adopted in London in November of 2006.

The resolution calls on search engines to erase data linking people to searches when sessions end unless they get permission to keep it.

Frattini praised Google for indicating that it would address other elements of Article 29, like reducing the time that "cookies" -- data retained by merely accessing a website -- will be kept.

Google has said it needs to keep information about searchers and their online explorations to protect its system against attacks; expose online scams and hackers; to improve the algorithm on which searches are based and to meet requirements by law enforcement.