Google has taken a new step toward protecting user privacy by changing their log retention policy from 18 to 9 months, following requests from the European regulators to anonymize the data collected by search engines sooner.

The search giant responded to the European authorities’ efforts to protect user privacy by following two recommendations. The first one was to include a privacy policy link on their home page, while the second one was to anonymize search logs sooner, although the retention period is still 3 months longer than the period demanded by European regulators.

Google, as well as other search engines, use user data to make improvements on their search quality, to improve security, reduce spam and fight fraud. However, in the past few years, privacy advocates and policymakers began questioning the search engines’ retention policies.

Google explained that when they began anonymizing data logs after 18 months, they knew it meant “sacrifices in future innovations.” They also added: “we believed further reducing the period before anonymizing would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users.”

Despite of that, after months of developing new methods of preserving user data’s utility, while at the same time anonymizing the logs sooner, Google said they’ve managed to come up with additional improvement in privacy.

However, they warned, as the period prior to anonymization gets shorter, the privacy benefits also become less significant. “So it’s difficult to find the perfect equilibrium between privacy on the one hand, and other factors, such as innovation and security, on the other.”

For the future, Google promised to come up with new ways of improving privacy for users, especially as technology continues to evolve. Among their objectives, finding the right balance between the benefits of data and advancement of privacy is a priority.