Yahoo further upheld a users right to privacy and upped the ante for competitors Google and Microsoft when it announced this week that it would begin anonymizing and deleting personal data information from its databases after only three months. While the other two companies have come out with plans to increase privacy in the last few months, Yahoo’s plan puts the others to shame by cutting even the best plan proposed thus far in half. Yahoo has announced their desire to lead the industry into a new era of trust and hopes to prove that the Internet can in fact be regulated. After the initial awe over the Internet had passed, users began to question what was being done with their information and wondering just how much big brother was watching. These suspicions led to increasing demands for privacy controls and regulations, items that companies were initially opposed to. Over time, requests from various civil rights groups have forced these companies to rethink their stance and it appears that they are finally ready to make some changes.