Microsoft Puts a Time Limit on Bing Data

Bowing to pressure in Europe, Microsoft said Tuesday that it would comply with regulators and discard all data collected on users of its Bing search engine after six months.

John Vassallo, a Microsoft vice president and associate general counsel, said the company would introduce the change over the next 18 months. The company aims to satisfy a European advisory group that had been critical of how search engines collect and retain data on individuals for advertising purposes. The concession, relatively painless for Microsoft given its tiny share of the global search market — just 3 percent — is yet another example of an American technology giant's changing its way of doing business to suit stricter European concepts of antitrust and privacy laws.