EU body to expand Web search probe

In this file photo Larry Page, co-founder of Google Inc., delivers a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada January 6, 2006. The European Union's data watchdog will expand its investigation of Web search engines beyond sector leader Google and write to that company, a European Commission source said on Thursday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's data watchdog said on Thursday it will expand its investigation of how Web search engines retain information on Internet surfers to other companies beyond sector leader Google.

The body last month questioned Google's privacy policies and will now "deal with search engines in general, and scrutinize their activities from a data protection point of view," it said in a statement.

The watchdog, which comprises national data protection supervisors of the EU's 27 countries, advises the EU on data privacy but its opinions are not legally binding.

When users carry out searches, Google gathers information about their tastes, interests and beliefs that could potentially be used by third parties such as advertisers, but the company says it never passes on the data.

Google wrote to the so-called Article 29 Data Protection Working Party earlier this month saying the company was ready to curtail the time it stored user data to a year and a half.

That storage time was the low end of an 18- to 24-month period it had originally proposed to regulators in March.

One member of the group said Google had been cooperative and it was unfair for it to be singled out.

"The idea was to be more balanced. It was a bit clumsy, with all the effort (Google) has made, to point the finger at them," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

The working party did not identify which other search engines were involved. The best-known search providers include Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search and Ask.com.

The watchdog said in May that Google seemed to be failing to respect EU privacy rules and asked for clarification before it held a meeting on Wednesday this week.

The watchdog will prepare a substantial letter of response to Google's letter and a draft is likely to be considered when the body meets again in the autumn, a European Commission official said.