GRC Roll-up: Search Engines Run Foul Of EU, Archiving Social Media Content

There has been a lot of noise in the past week made by the EU who says three major search engines are holding onto search data too long. A new release from ConverterTechnology ensures safe migration to Office 2010.

Search Engine Trouble With EU Privacy Watchdog

If you thought there were problems about privacy, search engines and data retention then it turns out you were right – in the EU at least.

In a statement issued by the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (W29), a group of European data protection authorities, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft were told that they were still not in compliance with EU regulations governing search data and anonymity.

While W29 recognized all three search engines’ efforts to implement their data protection legislation, W29 is still not happy and in a letter to the companies has asked them to use an outside auditor to “verify their commitments to make users’ internet search data truly anonymous.”

Copies of these letters were also sent to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and to the European Commission responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship.

In the letter to the FTC, the Working Party asks it to examine the compatibility of search engine practices with section five of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices. The letters follow the Working Party’s call for the companies to cut to six months the period during which they store search data before it is made anonymous.

In its letter to Google, the Working Party asks the company to cut the retention period from the current nine months to six months.

Considering Google’s dominant position in almost every EU Member State, with a market share of up to 95% in some national search engine markets, the company has a significant role in European citizens’ daily lives. The company’s apparent lack of focus in data retention is concerning,” the letter said.

The letters were only issued last week so probably a little early for an official response. Wait and watch!

Converting To Office 2010 Safely

ConverterTechnology has unveiled a new version of its OfficeConverter software that migrates all information quickly and safely to Office 2010.

OfficeConverter 2010 is designed to eliminate the threats to business continuity for unprepared companies, including long-term downtime, reduced worker productivity and potential regulatory compliance liabilities, as well as cost savings by speeding up user adoption.

It offers file discovery and transformation tools that identify and fix problematic Access, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, as well as any associated links, macros and Visual Basic for Application (VBA) customizations during enterprise-wide Office 2010 migrations.

The tools identify all of the files that should be converted, flag files at risk of corruption or incompatibility and fix problems automatically to ensure the migration goes as smoothly as possible.

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Tags: archiving, cloud computing, compliance, convertertechology, facebook, google, governance, grc, grc roll-up, linkedin, microsoft, office 2010, risk, search, security, sonian, twitter, yahoo!

There has been a lot of noise in the past week made by the EU who says three major search engines are holding onto search data too long. A new release from ConverterTechnology ensures safe migration to Office 2010.