Privacy bodies have welcomed Google's decision to anonymise personal data it receives from users' web searches...after 18 to 24 months. "This is an extremely positive development," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a US-based watchdog... However, governments could still force Google to hold onto data or hand it over to authorities.... Richard Clayton, a researcher at Cambridge University specialising in web traceability, said Google's announcement was positive but had not gone far enough. "It's a step forward but I would like to see them anonymising data in a much shorter period..." [also refers to AOL (part of Time Warner), Yahoo]