Who doesn’t use a search engine at least once an hour, if not more frequently, over the course of an average work day?

What was life like before we could access information in real time with few taps on a keyboard? (Actually, I caught a glimpse of what life might be like before search engines during this week’s episode of Flight of the Concords, when the band’s manager can’t call Quincy Jones because he doesn’t have a proper computer, much less a functioning Internet connection, but I digress.)

Search engines give us almost immediate access to almost comprehensive amounts of data. They make life easier, and, most importantly, they’re free.

They also know a heck of a lot about you. Most search engine capture your IP address and an identifier for your web browser (stored in a cookie) in addition to the content within your search query. They use that information to target advertising to you, which in turn helps keep search engines free, and improve the quality of the search engine, which keeps them mostly effective.

A few months ago, Google announced that it was the first search engine to publish a data retention policy. Beginning in December 2007, Google will “anonymize” your search engine data after 18 months – if you don’t return to the site.

Most search engines companies since then have developed similar policy, mostly in response to the European Union’s data protection authorities, and most have vowed to anonymize your data 13-18 months after your last visit to the search engine.

Yesterday, the Center for Democracy & Technology released its working paper on Search Privacy Practices:

Many of the Internet’s most amazing innovations are supplied for free thanks to advertising, but the mere presence of advertising-related demands does not justify overlooking privacy concerns.

CDT recommends a federal privacy law that will “protect citizens from bad actors” who may use your personal information for more than just search marketing.

Can search engines evolve without capturing and maintaining your information for a year and a half?

Here’s another the question: How much is your privacy worth? Is it worth less than the convenience of being able to download information when you want it on your time?