Close this menu

EU widens data retention inquiry

A European Union investigation set off by concerns over how long Google stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines. The EU’s panel of national data protection officers said it was now concerned over the retention of data that the companies use to deliver more-relevant search results and advertising. Some fear the data could be sought by hackers and governments. The panel "will deal with search engines in general and scrutinize their activities from a data-protection point of view, because this issue affects an ever-growing number of users," it said in a statement on Thursday.