Microsoft is working on issuing a Privacy Policy for Bing in about 12-15 months. What’s interesting here is that in the document, Microsoft states to reduce the data retention time of users’ search-derivated IP addresses from the current 18 months to 6 months.
Peter Gullan, from ‘Microsoft On The Issues’ wrote in a blog post,
“This change is the result of a number of factors including a continuing evaluation of our business needs, the current competitive landscape and our ongoing dialogue with privacy advocates, consumer groups, and regulators – including the Article 29 Working Party, the group of 27 European national data protection regulators charged with providing advice to the European Commission and other EU institutions on data protection.”
Microsoft further explains the policy through a chart (below) on how it immediately de-identifies the data by removing the account information of the person who performed the search and then purges the left-over IP addresses and cookie IDs in about 6 months.
So why does Bing keep the data for 6 months anyway?
Microsoft explains that the data retention policy helps them review the search queries efficiently. It makes it easy to identify trends, protect frauds and potentially improve the quality of search results over-time.
Considering Google’s data retention time period that stretches upto 9 months, I guess Microsoft’s move is pretty much balanced and acceptable. What’s your say? 
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I dont think google wipes out everything after 9 months. Atleast some identification will be kept IMHO :|
^ Maybe. Google very well knows how to make a ‘fine-print’ :)