Yahoo Increases Search Data Retention Period From 3 Months to 18 Months

Posted on April 22, 2011

Search Engine Land is reporting that Yahoo is extending the time it holds on to personal search records. The time will jump from a small three months to a much longer 18 months.

In 2008, Yahoo announced it would limit the time it held personally identifiable information related to searches to 90 days. The New York Times has a report of that announcement here.

Now, Yahoo is reversing its policy and extending the time it retains this "personally identifiable information" to 18 months, which is six times as long.