raving lunacy - oxymorons for the 21st century

In another smoke and mirrors announcement from the Googleplex is the new alleged privacy enhancement. Google said it would keep IP addresses on its server logs for 9 months before anonymizing them, down from the 18 months it currently stores it.
This is bullshit.

To get a clear idea of what this really means Chris Soghoian deconstructs it.

Long Story Short

Google has now revealed that they will change “some” of the bits of the IP address after 9 months, but less than the eight bits that they mask after the full 18 months. Thus, instead of Google’s customers being able to hide amongst 254 other Internet users, perhaps they’ll be able to hide amongst 64, or 127 other possible IP addresses.

By itself, this is a laughable level of anonymity. However, it gets worse.

First, remember that Google will not delete or anonymize user cookies from the logs when it slightly smudges IP addresses after 9-months. Second, remember that as long as you use a Google web property at least once every two years, the company will maintain a unique identifiable cookie value within your web browser. [emphasis mine.]
Source Chris Soghoian

Cookies are and have been the major privacy problem since the beginning of browsing. What started out as an enhancement “blah, Welcome Back Kotter!” has evolved into the date rape gang bang of the electronic age. Fully 99.999995 of websites you visit set at least one cookie, and in some cases dozens. This information gets sold to anybody with a checkbook and a PR stalker mentality.