Microsoft responds to subpoena controversey

In response to all the discussion about search engines handing over masses of data to the US government, the MSN Blog has Microsoft's response to the controversy:

MSN Search's WebLog : Privacy and MSN Search

Over the summer we were subpoenaed by the DOJ regarding a lawsuit. The subpoena requested that we produce data from our search service. We worked hard to scope the request to something that would be consistent with this principle. The applicable parties to the case received this data, and the parties agreed that the information specific to this case would remain confidential. Specifically, we produced a random sample of pages from our index and some aggregated query logs that listed queries and how often they occurred. Absolutely no personal data was involved.

With this data you:

CAN see how frequently some query terms occurred.

CANNOT look up an IP and see what they queried

CANNOT look for users who queried for both “TERM A” and “TERM B”.

At MSN Search, we have strict guidelines in place to protect the privacy of our customers data, and I think you’ll agree that privacy was fully protected. We tried to strike the right balance in a very sensitive matter.

Now that you have more information, you can be the judge.

Thanks to beSpacific for the link: beSpacific: MSN Blog Post Explains Search Data Provided to DOJ.

Technorati tags: Privacy :: Privacy :: Search Engines :: Department of Justice
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