Last week Googler Matt Cutts wrote a farily in-depth piece about Google's efforts to free user data to make switching services easier.  In addition to freeing data, several people (myself included) said that Google needed to make deleting user data a possibility.  Yesterday afternoon Google took a step in the right direction by announcing that it planned to start making user information more anonymous: 

They've provided more details about their server log retention practices [PDF] and say that the announced change in policy will hopefully take place in the next few months (up to a year, max).  But they also point out that laws may change to require them to keep full server logs for longer periods of times.

 

Google server logs have already been used in a number of legal proceedings to identify people accused of copyright violation.  And just recently Google search history logs were used to prove that a woman accused of murder had been searching the Internet for the best ways to kill or poison someone.

 

Like I said, this is a step in the right direction for Google.  They've promised to keep us informed of the progress in implementing the change.  When they do it should make some of the weary-eyed anti-Google folks a little happier.  I'd still like to be able to completely delete the information Google has collected on me.  But this is a nice 'in-the-meantime' first step.