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Search engine providers need to be more transparent about how they utilise users’ data, a government initiative has said.

Get Safe Online, a joint initiative between the government and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has said internet users should make a decision as to whether to remain with providers who use private information for things such as targeted advertising.

A report released this month by the European Union stated that search engines should not hold on to personal data for a period of more than six months. Google and Yahoo! currently carry a policy of rendering all users’ data anonymous after 18 months.

Managing director of Get Safe Online Tony Neate said: “It’s not always exactly transparent why they [search engine providers] need it [user data] so I’d like to see a bit more clarity in relation to the information that they hold and why.”

A June 2007 report by Privacy International said that Google demonstrated an “aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies”.

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A European advisory body has recommended that internet search engines should delete users’ personal data.

The European Commission’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party report has told how search engines are unclear on their data protection policies and advised that all collected personal data should be deleted after six months, the BBC has reported.

The recommendation would mean that collected data could only be used for the purpose of searching.

If the commission accepts the request it could lead to conflict with popular American search engine companies.

Google and Yahoo! carry a policy of rendering all users’ data anonymous after a period of 18 months. MSN’s policy comes into action at 13 months.

In a statement Peter Fleischer of Google’s global privacy counsel said: ‘Google takes privacy incredibly seriously; protecting our users’ privacy is at the heart of all our products.’

Another obligation set out in the report was the obtainment of personal consent from users to allow their data to be uses in non-search services. It also asked search engines to give users clear information on the data they intended to collect.

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Trojan malware has been found to be controlling Google ad space by sending users to different websites when they try to click on the search engine’s advertisements.

Romanian-based online security firm BitDefender found the hidden software, Trojan.Qhost.WU, and said that the threat could have a negative impact on both users and businesses.

Attila-Mihaly Balazs, a BitDefender virus analyst, said that users are prone to clicking on links or ads that “may contain malicious code”, while he said webmasters are affected because their valuable ad space is stolen by a third-party vendor and are used to promote someone else’s website.

An anonymous hacker who told siliconrepublic.com about how the malware could be operating said “most anti-virus” programs should pick up on the problem if “if an attempt was made to modify the host file anyway”.

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Search engine giant Google has announced that it is to allow developers to create applications based on its own open system.

The OpenSocial system will enable developers to come up with applications, which will potentially be able to be used across a number of different social networking websites, using three application programming interfaces.

Google’s new initiative follows in the footsteps of Facebook’s highly popular system, where developers can create numerous applications that users can install on their profile pages.

About a dozen OpenSocial partners have been signed up by Google so far, including Friendster, Orkut and LinkedIn.

‘The distribution message is really useful for developers in getting their applications spread across multiple sites,’ Google product manager Joe Kraus told eWeek.

Google was recently trumped by Microsoft in the race to secure a stake in Facebook.

Microsoft eventually paid $240 million (£115 million) for a 1.6 per cent holding, valuing Facebook at $15 billion.

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