Microsoft, Ask call for heightened internet privacy
The move increases pressure on the world's most popular Internet search firm Google, which has been eyed warily by privacy advocates since it announced plans to buy online ad-targeting titan DoubleClick.
Microsoft is buying DoubleClick rival aQuantive.
"We have been thinking deeply about privacy related to search and online advertising and believe it is critical to evolve our privacy principles," Microsoft chief privacy strategist Peter Cullen said.
"For instance, on search data, anonymous should mean anonymous."
Microsoft said data collected about use of its Windows Live online search service will be made anonymous 18 months after it is collected.
Microsoft will do that by removing bits of software code, referred to as "cookies," routinely installed on users' computers to store information about their website visits.
Computer IP numbers that act as addresses for individual machines will be erased and users will be able to refine data collected about their online activities, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft's policy change echos one made by Oakland, California-based Ask.com this month.
"We are entering a new age of innovative, competitive solutions to online privacy issues," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
After announcing it is buying DoubleClick, Google announced it will obscure information by deleting numbers from computer addresses of those that use its website but has not guaranteed Internet searchers anonymity.
DoubleClick, Google and other Internet firms amass information about users to customize advertising to people's tastes or interests.
Microsoft and Ask are inviting rivals such as Google, Yahoo and America Online to join in a forum devoted to creating standards of privacy for users.
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