Microsoft chief privacy strategist Peter Cullen said, "We think we as an industry ought to take a look at ways to further enhance privacy protections. We are trying to make sure that people have the ability to have a trusted experience."

He said that these steps are part of an effort to create an industry consensus on privacy practices.

Specifically, Microsoft would make all Web search query data anonymous after 18 months on its ‘Live Search‘ service, unless it receives user consent to store it longer.

Microsoft plans to store customer search data separately from data tied to people, e-mail addresses or phone numbers and take steps to assure no unauthorized correlation of these types of data can be made.

It also will permanently remove "cookie" user identification data, Web address or other identifiers.

Last week Ask.com unveiled Askeraser, a service that will allow Ask.com users to change their privacy preferences at any time.

The Microsoft iniative follows last week‘s announcement by Google on cutting down on cookie storage. Both the internet giants face scrutiny from European and U.S giants over their plans to merge with major players in the online advertising industry.