From the article at:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080909/a ...

"Google Inc. said Tuesday it will further cut the amount of time it keeps users' data logged on its search engine to meet EU privacy demands.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy adviser, said the company will reduce the time it stores search information from 18 months to nine. Google introduced an 18-month limit in 2007."

oops. also this passage might be of interest.

"Fleischer also announced that additional changes are being made to Google's "Suggest" application which allows users to make searches faster when the feature offers suggestions of search items in real-time. He said Google only logs 2 percent of data collected on such searches but said they will all be erased after a 24-hour period starting later this month."

NewsFactor Network coverage at
newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?sto ...
"Google Slashes Data-Retention Policy in Half"