SigEx Telecom : Google: User Cookies to Expire After Two Yearsby Delia Cruceru

Google cookies will now last 2 years instead of year 2038, the current date of deletion, said Peter Fleischer, Google's privacy counsel: "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies â€" as long as we could find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time. And this is why we’re announcing a new cookie policy." The cookies are set to expire after two years if the user doesn’t return to the search site, but for regular users the cookies will automatically renew and stay active. That unless the users don’t set their Web browsers' privacy options to reject those cookies automatically. This decision of Google comes after numerous reports from Privacy International and also from the European Union. Cookies are files with information sent by a website, in this case Google, to the visitor’s computer, in order to remember information about the user like password, preferences and behaviors. Jen Albornoz Mulligan, a Forrester Research analyst, in an interview for TechNewsWorld said:” It is a step in the right direction, but two years is still a relatively long-lasting cookie. The new policy does a better job of conforming to the privacy principles of collection limitation and use limitation -- meaning data should only be collected if it is really useful -- and should only be used for the purposes previously stated."

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070717/cm_thenation/15214948

by Delia Cruceru for SigEx Telecom (http://sigex.com)

SigEx Telecom is quickly becoming the leading telebroadcasting communications provider allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share video clips through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, websites, blogs, video-mails and SMS. SigEx Telecom captures many add-on services for its clients generating royalties and fees in a broad spectrum of marketing services including public relations and promotions.