Microsoft said today, after a request from a privacy panel on the European Union, that when people used their search engine Bing, they would only keep their IP address for a maximum of six months. This move, besides appeasing the privacy panel, will also help Microsoft to differentiate Bing as the choice for more security conscious surfers. Obviously, the most successful and biggest competition for Bing is Google. In response to the question of keeping and tracking IP addresses, Google said that this type of information is important to the way they supply search query results and to their ability to provide security to Google users. Will this move by Microsoft help to bring Bing to the forefront of Internet searches? Probably not, but at least they are doing something to differentiate themselves from the ubiquitous Google.
