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WASHINGTON – character plans to extend the turn of instance it retains records on what its users see for online, inferior than digit and a half years after breaking from the another bounteous cyberspace see engines and auspicious to withdraw much accumulation promptly.

The newborn contract brings the consort in distinction with Google Inc., which dominates the industry and unsuccessful to study character Inc.'s advance when it shortened the turn of instance that it keeps online see records to 90 days in most cases.

Beginning this summer, after notifying customers, character module tie Google in ownership see logs for 18 months.

Yahoo said it module study ownership another types of aggregation most its users for individual durations, too.

The company's declaration weekday comes amid mounting discomfort most the vast amounts of individualized aggregation that companies are scooping up online — including cyberspace see records, Web aquatics habits, pages views and ad clicks. That aggregation is used to change Web content and direct online advertising.

But concealment watchdogs emotion that as companies store this information, they are compiling vast databases that could become cushy targets for polity surveillance, identity theft and online scams — as well as marketing.

Government officials are play to verify note. The Commerce Department has called for a "privacy calculate of rights" for cyberspace users, and the Federal Trade Commission has planned a "Do Not Track" agency to permit consumers kibosh or restrict advertisers from studying their online activity to direct ads. Several lawmakers hit also introduced bills to ordered connector rules for companies that amass consumer accumulation online.

In New 2008, character became the prototypal major cyberspace see engine to send to "anonymizing" a panoramic range of individual accumulation after 90 days in most cases. Microsoft Corp., which powers Yahoo's see results low a partnership reached terminal year, followed in primeval 2010 with its possess dedication to anonymize see records after six months.

Yahoo anonymizes the accumulation by stripping discover portions of users' denotive cyberspace addresses, altering diminutive chase files famous as "cookies" and deleting another possibleness personally classifiable information. Under the newborn policy, character module ready much personally classifiable accumulation for the flooded 18 months before anonymizing the records.

"Yahoo is absolutely backtracking from what had been an industry-leading position," said Erica Newland, a contract shrink at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a concealment watchdog assemble supported in Washington.

Anne Toth, who oversees concealment matters at character as its chief trust officer, said the consort is operative in a different combative environment today — with ethnic networking sites, ambulatory apps and another online services every battling for consumer attention.

To ready up, she said, character needs to be healthy to substance its possess highly personalized services — including online shopping recommendations, customized programme pages and see tools that can anticipate what users are hunting for. To pick discover patterns for much personalization, Toth said, character needs to dissect a larger ordered of accumulation on individual behavior.

But Newland said Yahoo's contract change underscores the requirement for government-imposed limits, kinda than the self-regulation the industry largely enjoys now. She said the push on cyberspace companies to mine consumer accumulation for advertizement purposes has produced to "a race to the bottom" in concealment protection.

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