Yahoo said it would limit to 90 days the time it holds personal information related to searches to address privacy concerns.

Yahoo said that it would limit the time it holds identifiable personal information related to searches to 90 days to address growing concerns from privacy advocates and government regulators.

Microsoft said it would abide by a European privacy panel’s request to reduce the length of time it kept records of Web searches if its rivals, Yahoo and Google, did the same.

To the Editor:.

With Facebook Connect, users can log onto a variety of sites and see their friends’ activities there.

An emerging field called collective intelligence could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

Child-safety activists charge that age-verification firms want to help Internet companies tailor ads for children.

Companies like Microsoft and Google plan to introduce Wednesday a global code of conduct that they say will better protect online free speech and privacy against government intrusion.

As advertisers grow more sophisticated about behavioral targeting, and online privacy standards vary, regulators and privacy advocates are becoming concerned.

A new Web site offers free, ad-supported criminal searches, letting people search by name through criminal archives of all 50 states and 3,500 counties in the United States.