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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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Network Solutions, a domain name firm that registers internet addresses used in its own searches, said it is doing nothing wrong and in fact prevents domain name scams.

The company said it prevented so-called front running, in which scammers take advantage of a five-day trial period domain names without paying for them.

“This is a customer protection measure to protect customers from frontrunners,” said Susan Wade, spokeswoman for Network Solutions.

The company has attracted negative attention however because it tracks terms entered into its search field and registers them itself before selling them for a higher fee.

Vice president of the company, Jonathan Nevett, said in response: “Due to no fault of registrars, front runners purchase search data from internet service providers and/or registries and then taste those names.

“Some folks may not agree with our approach,” he said, “but we are trying to prevent this malicious activity from impacting our customers.”

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