Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Opts-In Hotmail Users
medeii writes "East Side Journal reports that without telling anyone, Microsoft has suddenly changed the privacy preferences for all Hotmail users. They're now sharing your name and other personal information with third parties, even if you said you didn't want that when you signed up. (If you're a user, login, go to Options > Personal Profile, and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.)" The same reporter has written a follow-up article today.
I'll do you one better.
Mozilla users can't access Options->Personal Profile to opt out.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
And this is surprising, how?
I mean, come on, this is Micro$oft we are talking about here... marketing, marketing, marketing!
Besides, Yahoo led the way, did they not? I would not be surprised to find out that Microsoft watched that whole Yahoo business very closely, and saw the complete lack of any outcry as a "green light" to go forward with this.
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
I don't care how good MS's software gets;
:) ) but fact is;
they can spend all of the money that they want making their software better and better (hey, Win2K does indeed rock. Heh.
keep pissing people off and they will lose customers faster then 'software security audits' up to hell will gain them customers.
(oh yah, and not making each OS more and more bleeping 'beautified' would be nice as well, I swear, if I wanted a pretty-boy interface I would've bought a mac!)
::hopes somebody hurries up and forces McNeel software to port Rhino3d to other x86 platforms. Is willing to provide crowbar to volenteer 'encourages' if necessary::
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Considering the amount of spam I get at my Hotmail accounts, I'm surprised that they haven't been doing this all along.
I have been pwned because my
I like chips with a zesty taste.
browse at -5 to read.
And in 2 months.... just like Yahoo... we'll see a follow up that nobdy cared and Miscrosoft let it stand....
Next......
"Others say it's comic -- Microsoft has pulled a Yahoo"
I'm going to start using that phrase...
HOWTO get better dates on slashdot
They have free email and no advertising appending. =)
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Interested in AI? MACR
What? Microsoft owns them? Their chairman is the richest man in the world? Well then, I guess there isn't much of an excuse to defraud customers, unless of course that is the way you become a hugely successful company...
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
Is there any alternative out there? Maybe we can get Google to do web mail.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
If anyone's stupid enough to use truthful information on hotmail or any other dumbass online sign-up thing (NYTimes), they get what they deserve.
If the lawmakers would get their shit together and pass some laws outlawing the sharing of data, this kind of crap wouldn't happen.
Sharing of data should be against the law.
So now you don't even have to tell every company and their brothers company that you do business with that you want your privacy, but you have to do it monthly???
Shouldn't privacy be a default thing to respect? Why should I have to constantly defend it?
Can I charge for infringment of my privacy? (like charging for spam?)
"To request your privacy options, tell us your life history. We want to make sure it's you, before we consider granting you temporary privacy."
If you do not allow us to use up bandwidth sending you stuff you do not want then you should pay us for lost revenues.
But, the downside to having the same email address for such a long amount of time is the fact that my address must be on every spam list known. I get at least 30-40 spams a day, and with the meager 2 MB of space Hotmail allows, if I don't delete all the spam every few days I stop receiving email altogether and get threatened with an account cancellation for exceeding the limit. And yes, in case you're wondering, I have the anti-spam feature on the second highest setting.
What I'm wondering is what is going to happen with this. If Microsoft starts giving my address to even more companies, and this is assuming they haven't done this already, my inbox will likely fill up faster than I can empty it. Looks like I may have to abandon the address altogether. My main issue is the fact that I registered for my Hotmail account using legit name and address info. This was before I realized what it would be used for, and as such I expect to receive a ton of junk mail via snail mail in the near future.
They're flooding their own servers with spam, pissing off the users, and looking like idiots. I'll bet their stock doubles for this... Is it just me, but are companies these days being rewarded for really stupid decisions? Seriously, I used to work for a department of a rather monstrous corporation, that paid rent on their office space to another department of the same company in the same building. A lot of the Human Resources budget went to pay a "money maker" Dept. for the right to use the company's floor space. And it seems that lots and lots of companies are doing stupid shit like this, and they only seem to grow bigger and more "Professionally Respected" I'm sure all of Microsoft's business partners are just ecstatic that M$ now has another source of revenue. This idiocy has to stop sometime, and Judging by the middle East, Armageddon's what, Thursday? This rant brought to you by me not having a goddamn thing to do at work...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
This is why those who value their privacy should only use companies that give notice before changing their privacy policy. If they don't give notice, then there is no time to react to have the personal information removed or changed, making whatever policy they have meaningless.
Again, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
Besides, Microsoft needs some money to build that factory in China with their partner to make cheaper Xboxes. 8')
Oh, well I guess that I should go out and sell all Micro$oft's personal information to every person I meet on the street :D Maybe some of their secrets too, $100 bucks a pop, anyone?
And so we go, on with our lives
We know the truth, but prefer lies
Lies are simple, simple is bliss
I went to disable that option and found out my account had been disabled since I didn't log in in 30 days. I click the "reactivate link" thinking I should reactivate and then uncheck that option, but upon reactivating I had to accept the terms of service again. You think you've seen some long ones before? Basically they're saying by accepting one, I'm accepting them all. Is it legal to agree to one document that links to terms in another document?
The following is quoted from their TOS:
The MSN Web Sites are offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices contained herein. Your use of the MSN Web Sites constitutes your agreement to all such terms, conditions, and notices. Your use of a particular MSN Web Site included within the MSN Web Sites may also be subject to additional terms outlined elsewhere in this agreement (the "Additional Terms"). To go directly to any of the Additional Terms, click on the link below:
Carpoint
GamingZone
MSN Health
MSN Money
HomeAdvisor
MSN Hotmail
Encarta Online
MSN Mobile
MSN Music
MSN Shopping (eShop)
MSNBC
Auctions
MSN Photos
Additionally, the MSN Web Sites may themselves contain additional terms, codes of conduct or guidelines that govern use of those sites, including without limitation, particular features or offers (for example, sweepstakes or chat areas).
To be fair to Microsoft, this information is only passed on when you sign in with your passport. I find it quite useful to be able to log into a site with passport, and I have instantly set up all the information I need to get started. No need to wait for an email, and reply with a code, or one of the other ways sites require you to register.
At the end of the day you do choose where you log in, and it has to know your email(as that is the user name) in order to log in -- this has always been the case. This seems to be allowing you to actually opt out of providing your email if you wished to do so.
So... as near as I can tell, Hotmail can be accessed fine using Mozilla. At least, I haven't had problems before. And now, when I try to get to the Personal Profile page, I get this:
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.
Browser Not Supported
Microsoft®
-- dR.fuZZo
You have successfully updated your Microsoft® .NET Passport profile.
.NET Passport participating sites, the updates you have made will not take effect at those sites until you sign out and then sign back in.
If you are currently signed in to
From the "Your Profile Has Been Updated" page you get after changing your settings.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
This is probably the 100th time there's been mention of trouble with the free webmail systems like Yahoo and Hotmail that people have had.
It really is worth the money to own a domain and get an email address that no one can fsck with.
Benefits:
Not based on your ISP
No privacy issues
Multiple email accounts for different purposes
Can utilize forwarding to webmail
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
I also updated my birth date to February 30th 2004.
As with most issues of this nature..
If the story hits big, and big media starts questioning the practice, MS will claim that it was a programing error, it was changed but they actually have no plans to really share that data, or it was strictly an "accident" in preparing for some upcoming vapor feature they planned on adding or testing. Sorry..
If it doesnt hit big the plan will stay put and 99.9% of the users will never know.
Another reason I always use completely bogus information for these registration things.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Yes this is lame but I don't know what to do about it. Do you think anything would change if a whole bunch of people complained? What would it take to get change or a sorry or something along this long.
I remember reading the opt-out email from Yahoo. I don't remember the one from HotMail. In fact, the last email I got from them said
"As a Hotmail member, you have received this e-mail to inform you of new services. Our policy has always been to send e-mail messages only to announce such information, and we'll continue to honor this policy. Thank you for being a Hotmail member."
-no broken link
To Yahoo! Mail pulling essentially the same stunt.
Why is it that these companies do this? When I say "no, I don't want that" I typically mean it (Unless I'm talking about chocolate cake, thank you). I understand that the Almighty Dollar plays a huge role in this, but isn't changing your privacy policy without notice an underhanded thing to do?
I thought it was, anyway.
I have a hotmail address (from before their sellout to the evil empire). I also am using Mozilla 1.0 RC2. When I tried to change the settings, I got the following message:
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.
Microsoft®
It appears that they're deciding to block browsers from accessing Passport unless they want them to, much like they did with MSN.com a few months back.
Same diff, Microsoft is sending your email address places you probably don't want it going, but users should be aware that this is probably pervasive in any Passport service they use, such as MSN messenger (may want to go and check the options on it if you use it).
I use my hotmail on the road to check my POP accounts. Sure it aint the best service. And recently I got off my lazy ass and installed some cgi on my mail server so I now have my own 'webmail'
But I dont have to dick with hotmail, admin it, config it. IT works, yeah I get spam, SFW?
FREE don't mean free for nothin
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Kinda reminds me of a MS developer mailing list I accidently got subscribed to. I tried to unsubscribe, but to do that I needed a passport profile. So in order to stop getting one anoying mailing list I would have had to give away my info which would be freely distributed among all the marketing companies sleeping with Microsoft.
The future isn't what it used to be.
i dont find them to be checked as u or the report says. ofcourse..my opera..have to feign as IE to get to that page..wish how /. would become if we allowed only *bugzilla* browsers. ;)
The info I used for my Hotmail account are as follows:
Mr. Honcho Poncho
101 Pieter Botha St.
Monrovia, Liberia
birth date: Feb, 30, 1999
I may get tons of spam, but, at least, i don't get any snailmail spam.
Well, I don't know how this is supposed to help children (since they can lie about their age) but it certainly has prevented me from abusing my account. I'm so happy there weren't any warnings or anything saying "we're going to fuck you if you play with us."
When I login at hotmail it still says this in the bit about the junk filter when you view a mail:
Keep in mind that MSN does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties.
Without MS constantly figuring out ways to make people pissed at them, GNU user base might not be growing so fast.
I know stuff like this only solidifies a conviction to non-MS computer base...someday it'll be hard as diamonds.
I mean there are no details I gave them for my hotmail account that are even close to the truth.
This is my standard form filling in procedure. I just put in whatever validates. Publish it all you like M$ - it ain't worth a thing.
well, might as well just start useing AOL for my Email server again
::inadiable mumbleing and muffled cusses::
Phew...looks to me like yet another Microsoft-Slashdot contract ("conspiracy") to bring loads of traffic to Hotmail site...
.NET Passport and required for registration at many Web sites, includes:
c essibility
P.S. The options with "Share my other registration information" has this text:
"This information, which is stored in your Microsoft®
Birth Date
Country/Region
State/Territory
Gender
Ac
Time Zone
Occupation"
This means that whatever fake information I put in Hotmail would be used for all other sites? No Way!
They are going to give all my fake information to third parties!!!
I'll have to come up with more fake names. F**k Microsoft!!
So, I was about to be in righteous indignation about this violation of my privacy, but then I realized I had signed up with a fake name, address, and birth date, and used an email address from another freemail service. Um, yeah, spam me harder.
I am not that concerned about the privacy of my address, phone number, or even my occupation, but I can definitely understand how someone who absolutely needs privacy could be. Furthermore, while I don't mind advertisers having statistically abstracted data patterns about user groups, I am quite concerned that Microsoft and other organizations will share individual user patterns. Tailoring content to someone who subscribed to an online service is one of the positive draws for companies that conduct virtual business. We should reward companies that install and maintain good privacy systems. Does anyone know of such companies?
The important thing to note here for almost everyone that is concerned with spam is that even though Microsoft's business partners will almost inevitably target you, you should be more worried about your friends sending out forwards with your e-mail in the To: or CC: line. Each of us knows that spammers harvest e-mail addresses too often, and this is the reason why. Until people are informed of this problem, or until e-mail servers/programs are required to strip out extraneous addresses (or must request authorization to know an e-mail address), we will continue to have this problem. And, even with such a system in place, we still can't guarantee people will be duped into giving out their e-mail addys.
Moral of the story: choose your online friends wisely.
Why would those boxes being checked stop them from using/selling the information? I am lost ... I assume they are just for for show anyways.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Services attained from having a Hotmail account is a lot similar to what other websites can offer, for example Yahoo!. While there is no option to close an account, Hotmail will force an account to close if you don't log in for awhile (about a month?). After a Hotmail account has closed, any incoming e-mail will be bounced off and the sender will be notified of the account closure.
If you are using Mozilla 1.0rc2 like me you get the following:
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.
Browser Not Supported
Microsoft®
We all knowYahoo did this a little while back, and AOL did it before that. And how do we know?, well they told us. The fact that Hotmail did it without notification is typical of their business style. I only wonder how many other services (Earthlink, AT&T, etc.) either don't offer an opt out option or reset your preferences unknown to you anyways. As always you get what you pay for.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
It's a safe bet that no matter what the vendor says, they will pimp out whatever they can for money. They will lie and cheat and then lie and cheat about that.
Either don't give them any true or useful information or don't give them any information at all. Leave footprints like misspelling your own name in a very unique way. Track it and complain complain complain when you find them out. cc a copy of your complaint to your state attorney general's office.
You'll let the secret out
If enough people create a bogus account... just think.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Ok they changed the default settings for everybody, then I go and change the settings back. But in the mean time they have already sold the info to other comapnies.
so there is no point in changing the settings back, is there.
The "proverbial" cat is out of the "proverbial" bag!
Damn, guess I better go the county courthouse and fill out that paperwork for a new last name..
Did everyone just log onto their Hotmail accounts at once or what? All of a sudden I'm getting the not-so-unfamiliar "Hotmail Account Temporarily Unavailable" screen. YOU SLASHDOTTED HOTMAIL! YOU BASTARDS!
-- dR.fuZZo
I just checked my hotmail options and those three boxes were NOT checked. So I have no idea what the hell the article writer is talking about or what's different between his case and mine.
Of course, this post will probably get buried under the avalanche of people who want to believe the article.
Mmmm.. Donuts
MSN is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This MSN Statement of Privacy applies to Microsoft's MSN family of Web sites and governs data collection and usage at all MSN sites and services.
None of these items were checked for me. Could this perhaps be only affecting some users? Possibly the submitter forgot to ask them not to share :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you are stupid enough to give MSFT your real name, and other information for using their service -- you deserve to have your information sold.
You can speed registration and get personalized services at participating sites by sharing your .NET Passport information with them when you sign in.
.NET Passport information Microsoft can share with other companies' .NET Passport sites at sign-in:
.NET Passport, privacy, and security.
Choose how much of your
_ Share my e-mail address.
_ Share my first and last names.
_ Share my other registration information.
Tell me more about
FWIW, when I checked my user profile, all three of the options were unchecked.
Mmmm.. Donuts
"Microsoft® .NET Passport was temporarily unable to complete your request. Please try again "
Well i guess their servers are too busy selling my information right now.
I should try later.
This, to me, is the strongest reason to fear, and prosecute, Microsoft as an abusive monopoly. It's telling to have to talk about a company--one that has its finger in every sector of our economy--anonymously for fear of an 'audit' or somesuch nonsense
What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Well, it is, according to what it says on the website.
they suck goobers...
you want to keep spam out of your email inbox??? get a ISP based account and DO NOT give out that email address ANYWHERE on the internet, only give it to close and trustworthy friends & family...
all free web based email are going to exploite their customers...
I've been using a hotmail account since before Microsoft bought it, for many years. Too many people know about that account, and it would be almost impossible for me to get in touch with all the people I've given that email address to and tell them that I'm moving.
Plus, it's not like other free email places don't do these sleazy tactics either.
I'm just frustrated that I have to daily, sometimes multiple times a day delete all the crap and spam that comes in, otherwise M$ will shutdown the account and I won't get the emails that are actually for me.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
As much as we all hate chain mail, maybe its time to use fire against fire. At one time Hotmail was a great company founded on the concept of viral marketing ("Get your Free..."). Help your friends and help Hotmail to get their head back on straight -- here's some viral FUD, edit and use as you see fit:
m l/92308/ 92560
Subject: Hotmail Privacy Scare!
Hi, sorry to bug you, but I just found out that Microsoft may have decided, without your consent, to change the default settings in Hotmail to share your personal information with other companies:
It's all here in these articles:
www.eastsidejournal.com/sited/story/ht
www.eastsidejournal.com/sited/story/html
By default, your Hotmail account is apparently now the following information with third parties:
E-mail Address
Birth Date
Country/Region
Province
Postal Code
Gender
Accessibility
Time Zone
Occupation
According to the articles, this has happened to every account, even if you asked them not to when you signed up, and even though their policy states that: ``Hotmail will not share your e-mail address with (Microsoft's) business partners'' and ``none of your personally identifiable information is shared with the third party Web sites.''
To see for yourself and to change your settings before they can sell your e-mail address and personal information, login to your Hotmail account, click on "Options", then "Personal Profile", and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.
And please tell everyone you know with a Hotmail account before their inbox fills up with even more spam and unwanted e-mail!
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
- Account sizes started at 10 MB. Hotmail recently reduced them to 2 MB.
- Hotmail constantly sends me reminders that I can get my 10MB of storage back by paying them a monthly fee. Great...
- Those same reminders generally come as part of a message that says, in effect, "Your account is almost full. We'll send you another message to add to the total so you fill up even faster. By doing this, we can clearly demonstrate why you need a larger account. Pay us now.
- I can get 500 messages from a single address with an identical subject and message body. Fun, now my account fills up even faster. (I sent suggestions on how to prevent this. The information was supposedly passed along to the dev team. Who knows...)
- I can sign up for a new account and within hours, I'm receiving spam. Dang, now that's some added value, not to mention adding to the need for more storage.
- Obvious bulk mail goes into my junk folder. Nice, except that my junk folder contributes to my total space used and isn't purged automagically if more space is needed. There isn't even an option to do this. (Sigh, I need more space again. Maybe they'll send me another advert so I can sign up..)
- And more and more of my favorite things about hotmail. Isn't it just nifty?
arg!!!!If you're a user, login, go to Options < Personal Profile, and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.
That doesn't matter.
As soon as they steal your privacy, information would be sold to third parties, and unchecking that option won't make the third parties forfeit their information.
Chances are, they've been selling user profiles without telling before, and now they're announcing this to cover their asses.
I feel cheated as a subscriber.
Microsoft has been sending out quite a bit of MSN-related spam to Hotmail users lately. What really irritates me about this is that not only can this not be filtered out (they send it as a member announcement from staff@hotmail.com), but they also blatantly lie and say that their policy is and always has been to send such emails only to inform Hotmail users of new services that are related to Hotmail. How in the hell is MSN a service that is directly related to Hotmail?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
...now that's innovation...
...Microsoft® Innovation (TM)
heh... just checked my preferences..... turns out that I decided to be a unemployed 101 year old Afganistan woman living in Mazar-e Sharif
:-)
now that my information is shared.... I wonder if I made it onto the FBI/CIA/NSA list of email boxes to monitor.
I wonder what identity I should have next
OK, I've got four HotMail accounts. For the first three, the options had been changed and I reset them to opt-out. When I got to the fourth account, which I set up about three weeks ago and have NEVER sent a message from, my options indicated that none of my info was to be public. However, there were 171 SPAMs waiting for me, starting just a few hours after the "Welcome to HotMail" message. Apparently, they released my new e-mail address to the wild the instant it was created, making any decision of mine to opt-out a moot point. Once it's out there, you're screwed.
BFD. It must be a slow news day for /. to report on something that is so obvious.
Witty quotes suck.
If you're Privoxy/Junkbustering, you can change it there, FWIW.
- Birth Date
- Country/Region
- State
- ZIP Code
- Gender
- Accessibility
- Time Zone
- Occupation
Also randomizing your personal information might be best.I'd suggest before you all get panties in a bunch you should actually go check your hotmail to verify this story before blindly believing anything. I just checked mine and my setting have NOT changed.
Read the opt-in/opt-out choices carefully. This is NOT about selling personal information to third parties. This is about single sign-on convenience using Passport.
Since the passport username is one's email address (not necessarily a hotmail one), it's inevitable that a 3rd party that uses passport authentication will acquire your email address anyway (assuming you want to register with them to see the rest of their site).
How?
Say you choose NOT to share your passport email address. You authenticate at a Microsoft site with passport. You then navigate to a 3rd party site that uses passport authentication. They use authentication in the general sense because they require registration to access their content. They look in your cookie and see that you are passport authenticated and have a passport unique ID. But they don't have your email address. Guess what? They are going to ask you for minimal registration information (such as your email address) to associate your identity with the passport authentication id. It may be the case that you give them another email address. But chances are the average user will probably give them the same email address as the one associated with your passport.
It's about giving the user convenience when he/she choose to sign up at a 3rd party site that uses passport authentication.
Nothing more...nothing less.
Everyone sign up for a dozen hotmail accounts and effectively posion they're market data. If companies find out 50% of the email addresses on hotmail.com are false then they'll pay MS less money to host _more_ addresses.
/. trolls.
I hate to be the one to call for this, however it's just as legal as what they're doing. It's no the moral thing to do but it is legal. It's time to do something all you little
I have on old hotmail account that gets 100+ pieces of spam a day, and I no longer recieve any personal email to that account. What I've done, is I use Gotmail to download all the email, then pipe it to Razor. I do this every day from a cron job. If every slashdot user set up a hotmail account with a phony name, and ALLOWED the spam to come by not changing thier preferences, this would be a pretty good way to keep Razor, or whatever other spam reporting service you are using current.
I say bring em' on! I'm happy to waste MS's bandwith, and glad to help keep the spam databases current, so those of us running Spamassassin can keep our real email accounts clean.
Why are people still using Hotmail?
It's got to be the worst free email service on the Net when it comes to reliability, security, spam and superfluous fluff associated with your mail.
When I discovered how much simpler and cleaner YahooMail was I ditched my HotMail account and never regretted it for a moment.
Okay, Yahoo may still change your marketing preferences, but at least they had the decency to let you know about it and give you a chance to reverse the changes before adding you to a long list of lists.
However, the best thing of all about YahooMail is that I get an incredibly small amount of spam arriving in my yahoomail email box.
Either their spam filtering is far more effective, or spammers consider Hotmail user to be dumber (and therefore more likely to believe that you can earn $50,000 a month stuffing envelopes).
I also get a 6MB mailbox for free (perhaps because I was an early adopter -- I don't think they're quite as generous for new signups) and the service seems very reliable.
With my Javascript turned off I don't even see the pop-up ads that can be such a PITA when browsing Yahoo's properties.
Yahoo may be far from perfect but it's a whole lot better than Hotmail that's an absolute undeniable fact.
The better solution is to just use a free email account and liberally apply to filters and ignore lists.
Hotmail keeps your personally identifiable information private and does not share it with any third parties, unless you choose, at the time of registration, to be listed in either the Hotmail Directory or the Internet White Pages directory.
I then have the sharing of my email address and registration information checked for me. Sure, I believe them!
The dogcow says "Moof!"
M$ desided my last name contained an illegal or reserved name. My Last name was "Gladson" like my real last name was. So I changed it to "Destroyer of MS" instead. Obviously they had no problem with that. Go figure. Dumb ass M$ Passport.
==========
Sincerely,
Locke
So, I guess that's my moral to the story... don't just use these services... USE them. Everyone that asks for your demographic info is giving you the opportunity to make ALL of that database less valid and less useful. This really is an opportunity.
ceci n'est pas un 'sig'
1. Provide free email service.
2. Rape customer's privacy.
3. Profit!
I moved not long ago and never changed my profile. But my profile now shows my new state and zip! My GF's Hotmail account profile was changed likewise, and she never changed her profile, too!
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Proxomitron, the ad blocker software, can identify any browser you have as anything you like. The default is Space Bison. (Unfortunately, I don't think there is a Linux version.)
Identify as Opera: dont work
Identify as Mozilla 5.0: dont work
Identify as Mozilla 4.76: Works
Identify as Mozilla 3.0: dont work
Identify as MSIE 5.0: Works(duh!)
Yet, in Opera, all the pages are rendered the same way, and all pages in hotmail work fine in Opera assuming you identify it as a 'preferred browser'. So, its not a functionality issue, just a "use our damn browser or else" issue. A DDoS attack from MSN to non-IE users? hehe
I have one word that describes MicroCrap.
"Fuckers!"
This would explain why I've been getting 100+ Junk Mail emails recently!
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
That the column's web page had Gimp and Linux penguin icons at the bottom?
...
Some would think this shows bias
gregg
Work Hard, Rock Hard, Eat Hard, Sleep Hard, Grow Big, Wear Glasses if You Need 'Em.
I was using Hashmail but it's down for these days. Is there really not good free email with proper security level and a pop3/imap server and can survice on its own and probably wouldn't die in the near future? Hmm, may be I'm asking too much for free services. :/
I had to change my Opera identity to get it to let me in. Looks like one of those ad hoc "version check" things that makes presumptions about the capabilities of your browser.
v iew.asp. The same sort of idea is going to hold true with the Liberty Alliance system as well.
Having said this, this has more to do with Microsoft Passport than Microsoft. I've actually been evaluating Passport as an optional authentication method on a current project, and one of the features that it offers is that upon authentication partners can get the basic user information (such as what they state on their site when you look at what "other registration info lists") for the purpose of making it easier for the user to complete orders, etc. It's unfortunate that they hijacked Hotmail to begin this, and the preference should start and not (perhaps even terminating your account if you refuse to allow it, but certainly not automatically doing it), however that's the whole purpose of Passport : To give users one username and password, and to allow them an easier experience on the net. You can see the details at http://www.microsoft.com/myservices/passport/over
...because of some stupid little thing like this?
Not because Windows XP forces you to call Microsoft to "register" it if you buy a new motherboard?
Not because Outlook and Outlook Express open attachments and install viruses, worms, and trojans FOR you?
Not because Microsoft voids your software's license because you "installed it too many times"?
Not because Media Player was shipped with spyware in it?
Not because Microsoft is forcing ridiculous licensing schemes onto educational institutions?
Not because Microsoft treats their users like babies and thinks that they know better than you what you want to do with your computer?
Not because they got rid of Clippy from MS Office?
Not because they bullied OEMs to install ONLY Microsoft operating environments?
Good grief... If THIS is what it takes to drive people over the edge, they shoulda went with writing a new "we 0wNz your house, car, wife, and kids" clause in their EULA.
It's true on my end; two of the three (share email and share other personal information) were indeed checked. A few quick clicks and I'm back to normal. Not like I really use the account anyways.
Schlock Mercenary
A simple, albeit partial, solution to many of these privacy breaches is to *always* provide false information in the first place.
For any form, even non electronic stuf when I'm not required by law to be truthful I *never* am.
Name, age, address, everything is wrong.
This way their databases are full of useless crap.
I still get to use the service and they'll never find out. If they do and they cancel it, I'll register again with more false info.
Actually it is a good idea to have multiple false accounts anyway. More backdoors for me, more junk for their hard disks.
Simple, hit them in the balls.
(If you're a user, login, go to Options > Personal Profile, and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.)
Shouldn't that read something like...
"If you're a user, then the preference to change is your email provider."
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Good. I hardly get any spam on my hotmail account. Now I won't feel so lonely....
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Yer site kicks ass.
This is probably the 100th time there's been mention of trouble with the free webmail systems like Yahoo and Hotmail that people have had.
Actually... I have had absolutely no trouble with Yahoo's webmail. I've had an account there for over a year now and have yet to receive a single--a single--piece of spam. I for one am impressed.
The coolest voice ever.
Oh no, they'll find out I'm a 75-year-old database administrator for an Albanian government of 10,000 people!
Wait, that was my info for download.com...
The coolest voice ever.
why do you always jump to the conclusion that Microsoft (no dollar signs, please) is evil? Every time something like this happens, it is because Microsoft's own Windows 2000 servers crash and all the users' preferences get fucked up. I think you all own Microsoft (again, no dollar signs please) an apology.
I'm supposed to check my account? I just signed up to get the free VB compiler for my iPAQ.
Oh shit...
RTFAs. The email and "other profile info" settings were opted-in without the user's knowledge or consent. There's no "allowing you to actually opt out of providing your email if you wished to do so" about it.
Everyone acts surprised at actions like this, we are in a capitalistic society, companies that fight dirty win and make money. Companies aren't out for your best interest; sometimes their money making strategies coincides with yours and other times it conflicts. Accept this fact and move on.
A big sloppy kiss?
This is Microsoft we're talking about. What were
you thinking when you signed up? Something like this:
We value your privacy at Microsoft...
Hmm..Microsoft promises they will not sell my information.
All 100 fields must be filled in before activating your Hotmail account
Ok..I'm now giving my personal information to Microsoft..
A few weeks go by
Valued consumer, thank you for allowing us to provide you with exciting information from all of our partners!
Sigh, I trusted Microsoft! Won't do that again!
You have new mail!
Valued consumer, you have been preselected to
try out our new Hotmail Spiffy service!
Hah! A preselected member of Hotmail Spiffy! I am v eleet. I will be the first Hotmail Spiffy user
in the office.
To obtain you Hotmail Spiffy password, please fill out the following membership form:
Hmm, must have Hotmail Spiffy
Filling in membership form....
If you don't like it, here's an idea:
START YOUR OWN MAIL SERVER! PLEASE! Learn how it works, learn the operating system on it (may I suggest FreeBSD or OpenBSD), learn the in's and out's and tweaks.
With broadband so cheap, and older computer's going for a song, why not?
Quit bitching and start a revolution.
In my Profile this is what the checkboxes at the bottom are described as.
.NET Passport information with them when you sign in.
.NET Passport information Microsoft can share with other companies' .NET Passport sites at sign-in:
You can speed registration and get personalized services at participating sites by sharing your
Choose how much of your
[] Share my e-mail address.
[] Share my first and last names.
[] Share my other registration information.
This is for setting how much personal info you want shared when you sign in to a site that uses Passport. If you did not use Passport then you would have registered at the site and probably given the same info. This does not mean they are selling my info to 3rd parties. This article is FUD.
'Same speed C but faster'
I obfuscated the names because I have nothing against the people who responded (or didn't respond, depending on your point of view) to my request. Their replies were slightly mechanistic, and it is clear (to me, yvmv) that Microsoft has no intention of giving up the information I provided to open my hotmail account. But I planned for this day, so any junk mail Microsoft may have signed "me" up for, using the name and address I generously provided, is being forwarded to the dead letters office in Leesville, Louisiana. Yeeha.
This latest move comes as no surprise, really. I can't imagine Redmond respects my privacy any more than Yahoo!, Egghead, or any one of a dozen other defunct dot coms...
===== BEGIN =====
Excellent. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. I intend to close my account presently. I will attempt to log in to hotmail in 100 days. If that attempt succeeds, I will contact you then.
From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
To:
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:23:03 -0800
Hello mephistopheles51@hotmail.com, .NET Passport.
.NET Passport Customer Support Representative
Thank you for writing to Microsoft
In response to your inquiry, I would just like to reiterate that your Hotmail account is an automatic Passport account as well. Therefore, if you close your Hotmail account, your Passport account will also be cancelled.
I hope I was able to help you.
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Pi.
Microsoft
--- Original Message --- .NET Passport Support"
From: mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
To: "Microsoft
Sent: Tue Feb 26 19:40:25 PST 2002
Subject: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
Finally, someone actually *read* my question. After receiving the exact same response twice in a row I was becoming concerned that there was no human being on the other end of the computer at all, but a machine, which was parsing the question and appending the appropriate "solution". To rephrase your reply: if I close my hotmail account, and DO NOT USE MY PASSPORT FOR 90 DAYS, all information provided to or collected by Microsoft will be automatically deleted, including any information provided to marketers, advertisers, or any of Microsoft's "partners". If you respond affirmatively, I will close my hotmail account and expect that the non-public information provided to Microsoft by me will be deleted as above, following 90 days of inactivity. If you must respond negatively, please forward my question to someone who will guarantee that the non-public information provided to Microsoft by me will be deleted as above, or who will state, for the record, that it simply cannot (or will not) be done prior to responding. I should like a name in the latter case. In either case, if I have not heard from a representative of hotmail or passport in three days, I will take this matter up again. I eagerly await your reply.
Thank you.
>From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
.NET Passport.
.NET Passport Customer Support Representative
>To:
>Subject: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
>Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 23:02:00 -0800
>
>Hello Mephistopheles51,
> Thank you for writing to Microsoft
> Regarding your inquiry, Email services of Hotmail Passport IDs are
>automatically deactivated after 30 days of inactivity. After such time,
>your Hotmail Passport will cease to be an email account but you can still
>continue using the ID on other Participating Passport sites.
> Should you wish to have your Passport ID purged from our system, please
>refrain from accessing the account for 90 days. Accounts are automatically
>removed from our system only after the specified period of inactivity.
> I hope I was able to answer your question, if you have other inquiries,
>please do not hesitate to write us back.
>
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Je.
>Microsoft
>
>--- Original Message --- .NET Passport Support"
>From: mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
>To: "Microsoft
>Sent: Mon Feb 25 19:00:23 PST 2002
>Subject: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
>
>I'm afraid you don't understand, as previously explained.
> I want to delete my "passport", thereby deleting all information provided to
>or collected by Microsoft, and not just my hotmail account. As indicated by
>the recent memorandum from Bill Gates, it appears Microsoft has finally
>realized that it must earn users' trust. This is a step in the right
>direction. Users are not a cash machine for any corporation that decides to
>abuse its monopoly status for the benefit of the marketing and advertising
>departments of its many "partners".
> However, the recent attacks on hotmail, and the vulnerabilities in
>Microsoft's ".net" and "passport" services have convinced me that none of
>the information I provided to Microsoft is truly secure, not even my name,
>address, or IP, and that Microsoft cannot be trusted not to use the
>information provided or collected for its own gain, and to my detriment.
>Therefore, I would like to delete all information I provided to Microsoft,
>or which has been collected by Microsoft about me, in its entirety.
> Please tell me how to do that, or direct my inquiry to someone who can.
>Merely deleting my hotmail account simply will not suffice. Thank you.
> >From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
.NET Passport.
.NET Passport site (such as Messenger or eShop) for
.NET Passport for a full 90 days. In
.NET Passport
.NET Passport has comprehensive online help available to you.
.NET Passport or help with Microsoft
.NET Passport
.NET Passport help topics.
.NET Passport. If you have further questions,
.NET Passport Customer Support Representative
> >To:
> >Subject: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> >Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:21:11 -0800
> >
> >Hello Mephistopheles51,
> >
> >
> >Thank you for writing back to Microsoft
> >
> >With regard to your concern, please be guided on the procedures of deleting
> >your mephistopheles51@hotmail.com account.
> >
> > >>> To close your Hotmail account
> >
> >1. In the upper right corner of any Hotmail page, click "Help".
> >
> >2. In the MSN Hotmail Help window, click "Find", type "Close account", and
> >then click "Go".
> >
> >3. In the search results, click the "Close your Hotmail account" link. 4.
> >Follow the instructions to close your account.
> >
> >You can also close your Hotmail account by not signing in to the account
> >for 30 days or within the first 10 days after you set up your account.
> >Hotmail then marks your account as "Inactive", your stored messages are
> >permanently deleted, and inbound messages are returned to the sender. You
> >can reactivate your account by going to the sign-in page and typing your
> >sign-in name and password. If your account remains "Inactive" for 90 days,
> >Hotmail permanently deletes it. You cannot reactivate your deleted account
> >because it has been completely removed from our system. You must register
> >for a new one.
> >
> >Note: If you want to permanently close your Hotmail account, do not sign in
> >to Hotmail or any other
> >which you use your user@hotmail.com
> >addition, if your Hotmail account is closed, your hotmail.com
> >is also closed.
> > Microsoft
> >For more information about Microsoft
> >.NET Passport features, click the Help link on a Microsoft
> >web page. When the help window opens, click the appropriate topic, or click
> >the All Topics link at the top of the help window for a categorized list of
> >all Microsoft
> >
> >Thank you for using Microsoft
> >please reply to this e-mail message.
> >
> >
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >
> >Lo.
> >Microsoft
> >
> >--- Original Message --- .NET Passport Support"
> >From: mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
> >To: "Microsoft
>
> >Sent: Fri Feb 22 17:35:47 PST 2002
> >Subject: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> >
> >I'm afraid you don't understand. I want to delete my "passport". Microsoft
> >simply cannot be trusted with the information I provided, and cannot be
> >trusted not to attempt to collect more and more associative information to
> >be sold to its marketing and advertising "partners". I do not want any
> >information I provided to Microsoft to exist on Microsoft's servers at all.
> > The help page simply states that I will be closing my hotmail account, and
> >that after 90 days my hotmail account will be deleted, but that deletion of
> >my hotmail account will not affect my passport, and that I may reactivate my
> >hotmail account at any time within 90 days simply by signing in to hotmail.
> >This is not acceptable.
> > Please direct me to a link that will allow me to delete my passport, thus
> >removing all passport information collected by Microsoft.
> > As an aside, why do hotmail.msn.com, passport.com, and msn.com need 14
> >cookies between them? Don't you find that a little excessive? I certainly do.
> > Thank you!
> > >From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
.NET Passport.
.NET Passport account.
.NET Passport site (such as Messenger or eShop)
.NET Passport for a full 90 days.
.NET
.NET Passport has comprehensive online help available to you.
.NET Passport or help with Microsoft
.NET Passport
.NET Passport help topics.
.NET Passport. If you have further questions,
.NET Passport Customer Support Representative
>
> > >To:
> > >Subject: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> > >Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 19:31:37 -0800
> > >
> > >Hello mephistopheles51,
> > >
> > >Thank you for writing to Microsoft
> > > In response to your concern, I have provided below the procedure on how
> > >to delete your mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
> > > >>> To close your Hotmail account
> > > 1. In the upper right corner of any Hotmail page, click "Help".
> > > 2. In the MSN Hotmail Help window, click "Find", type "Close account",
> > >and then click "Go".
> > > 3. In the search results, click the "Close your Hotmail account" link.
> >4.
> > >Follow the instructions to close your account.
> > > You can also close your Hotmail account by not signing in to the account
> > >for 30 days or within the first 10 days after you set up your account.
> > >Hotmail then marks your account as "Inactive", your stored messages are
> > >permanently deleted, and inbound messages are returned to the sender. You
> > >can reactivate your account by going to the sign-in page and typing your
> > >sign-in name and password. If your account remains "Inactive" for 90 days,
> > >Hotmail permanently deletes it. You cannot reactivate your deleted account
> > >because it has been completely removed from our system. You must register
> > >for a new one.
> > > Note: If you want to permanently close your Hotmail account, do not sign
> > >in to Hotmail or any other
> > >for which you use your user@hotmail.com
> > >In addition, if your Hotmail account is closed, your hotmail.com
> > >Passport is also closed.
> > > Microsoft
> > >For more information about Microsoft
> > >.NET Passport features, click the Help link on a Microsoft
> > >web page. When the help window opens, click the appropriate topic, or click
> > >the All Topics link at the top of the help window for a categorized list of
> > >all Microsoft
> > >
> > >Thank you for using Microsoft
> > >please reply to this e-mail message.
> > >
> > >
> > >Sincerely,
> > >
> > >Ed.
> > >Microsoft
> > >
> > >--- Original Message --- .NET Passport Support"
> > >From: no@alternate.com
> > >To: "Microsoft
> >
> > >Sent: Tue Feb 19 18:51:42 PST 2002
> > >Subject: delete my account
> > >
> > >CustomerName : don't need don't need
> > >UpdateCountry : false, false
> > >CUBirthdate : don't need
> > >BrowserVersion : don't need
> > >OperatingSystem : don't need
> > >ErrorMessage : n/a
> > >Submit : Send
> > >ContactEmailAddress : mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
> > >Country : US
> > >FirstName : don't need
> > >LastName : don't need
> > >Region : 19283
> > >PostalCode : don't need
> > >Comments : you don't need any of this information to delete my account
> > >RIGHT NOW.
> >
> >Don't Believe the Hype!*
> >*and it's all hype...
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
I just checked my account, and ALL THREE boxes were checked. This was after the fact that I unchecked all the boxes a mere 48 hours ago.
Good think my address at 124 Fake Street was sent to MSN's Partner Sites.
Please email all complaints to root@127.0.0.1 and the issue will be dealt with in due time.
...to each other about this, when are the slashdot readers going to organize and convince US lawmakers to make this sort of bullshit (whether the act was intentional or not) illegal? That's the only way it will end.
... but MSN's a paid service. Nowhere does it say
"Keep in mind that HOTMAIL does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists..."
Those things are, however, long-term goals.
This action means a SHORT-term cash influx.
What I'm wondering is: could it be that Microsoft is having difficulty making payroll? X-Box is flopping, and what is the last major product release they've had? PC sales are not stellar either.
I realise the received wisdom is that they've got more money than God, but take just a moment to consider who that information is coming from: Microsoft itself, the same people who also say 'we'll be forced to make several million different versions of Windows', and 'this video will demonstrate to the Court that...'
Why do we suddenly believe them when they also say, 'Oh, and we have forty billion dollars. Isn't that cool?'?
Enron looked like a hell of a deal- until reality set in. How many billions of dollars did THEY say THEY had? And I don't think there's any evidence that Enron was LESS truthful than Microsoft.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Microsoft was secretly bankrupt?
It's illegal to share or collect info about kids.
sign up for everything as a 4 year old
Hot mail collects region information. .de , .no, .au, .fr. ? I believe they demand notification of change, even if its in the contract in the first place. Law of transborder information flow. Now the internet taxing EEC will complain the US just got another trade advantage
Excluding US domiciled addresses, have privacy specific laws been breached in
Is it even legal to change the privacy options.
there was such a recent thing even by yahoo -
regarding changing the privacy options.
Isnt it synonymous to selling a car with a certain
warranty, and then going back and changing the
warranty of the car.
Sure, hotmail is free, but that doesnt mean they
change privacy options.
Good thing I changed
my name to
Bill Gates
and my address to
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
and my phone number to
425-882-8080
'Soft Talk: New Hotmail settings might share your info, addresses
.NET Passport, Microsoft's brand name for a universal, all-in-one password.
.NET Passport.
2002-05-14
by Cydney Gillis
MSN and Hotmail keep giving Microsoft Corp. headaches and embarrassment.
The latest is a doozy. Yesterday an irate reader tipped me off to the fact that Microsoft has changed the privacy settings for Hotmail.
What that means for subscribers to Microsoft's Internet service and millions more who use its free Hotmail e-mail service is that the company can share a Hotmail address with its partner Web sites.
In short, if you are already signed up for and use Hotmail, Microsoft has given itself the right to share your e-mail address and other data with outside companies -- even if you explicitly told Microsoft not to do so when you signed up.
It was done, says my reader -- who works at a Microsoft-dependent organization and asked not to be named -- without anyone's knowledge or consent, allowing Microsoft to share information with other Web sites that accept its
That could spell lots of spam, or unwanted e-mail, from Microsoft's partners. Here's what happened:
First, Microsoft added a new section at the bottom of its MSN Hotmail registration form. The form already asked for ``Profile Information,'' including your name, state, zip code, birth date, gender and occupation. Another section called ``Account Information'' asks what you'd like your Hotmail address and password to be.
Two particular boxes under Account Information are and, in all fairness to Microsoft, always were pre-checked. Unless a person deliberately unchecked them or ``opted out,'' as it's called, Microsoft always had automatic permission to list a new e-mail address in its Hotmail Member Directory and a separate Internet White Pages -- much like a new telephone number automatically comes with a directory listing.
It is there the comparison comes to a screeching halt.
Under Account Information, Hotmail has added three new boxes asking to ``Share my e-mail address,'' ``Share my first and last names,'' and ``Share my other registration information.''
If you went to sign up for a new account, as I did yesterday, none of those boxes would be checked. You would have to check them yourself to allow, or ``opt in'' to, the information sharing.
But if you already have a Hotmail account, guess what? Microsoft has checked two of the new boxes for you, allowing it to share your e-mail address and the other registration data such as your gender, occupation and birth date.
Tell me I'm wrong -- or that Microsoft has unchecked these options by the time this embarrassment hits the fan. If you have an active Hotmail account, go to www.hotmail.com. When the home page comes up, click on ``Options,'' followed by ``Personal Profile.''
Look for the boxes at the bottom, under a paragraph headed ``Tired of registration forms?'' In that paragraph, Microsoft explains how convenient it is to share your Hotmail registration information, which it uses to create the
Passport can identify you and speed your purchase at a variety of participating Web sites. Thanks to the new, mysteriously checked boxes, Microsoft can now share your Hotmail address with those sites, even if Microsoft itself does not run them -- a distinct change in the Hotmail privacy policy that was posted at MSN as of noon yesterday.
The policy, in fact, doesn't say a word about Passport, much less sharing anything with it.
Again, in all fairness to Microsoft -- which did not answer any questions on this topic by press time yesterday -- the company's privacy policies state that it may change them at any time.
By today, I'm guessing Hotmail's privacy policy will be changed or those new boxes will be unchecked. I'm guessing it might be the latter, judging from the outrage of my irate reader and others who were complaining about the unannounced switch in an online news group yesterday.
``It was done without our knowledge and consent in a secretive manner in violation of Microsoft's own terms of service,'' my reader said.
``I consider it a security issue,'' the reader added. ``It's only justifiable that (Microsoft) be forced to send out an e-mail to all MSN subscribers and all other users of Hotmail notifying them this change has been made and offering us the opportunity to opt out.''
'Soft Talk appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cydney Gillis can be reached at 425-453-4226 or cydney.gillis@eastsidejournal.com.
And just like every other microsoft 'innovation', it was invented by someone else, in this case Yahoo.
I have been getting a lot of junk mail that had the following unsubscribe information:
Unsubscribe Information This email was sent to the owner of the following Account/Username: ryuser To "opt out" from future mailings of this type, visit This Page Or call the 800 number below. Please allow 5-10 business days for database request
The opt-out link wasn't working for the longest time, and the 800 number was never shown. I tried, but there is no way to filter junk mail by words in the body of the message in hotmail. That would of solved the problem. I tried one more time today to opt-out and it seemingly worked. Interesting how things like that work. Finnally figure out how to get rid of one spam, and you get signed up for another. Anyone else get this kind of spam?
I stopped using my account long ago, but I decided to login, reactivate, and change those privacy settings. (Maybe I just shouldn't have reactivated, but I couldn't be sure.) Anyway, I get an error that my browser (Mozilla) is unsupported when I click on the Personal Profile. Swell...
http://galeon.sourceforge.net/support/answers.php? faq=user-agent
Do not do business with Microsoft or their Partners. Get rid of all your Microsoft software the trash can is a good place to put it. Tell your boss that you will not use Microsoft Products that you will use Linux can you install Linux on your Workstation or bring in your Linux Laptop. Another option is a bootable live file system or a floopy baised linux at work. Do not visit Microsoft or their Partners websites. If you Boycott them their revenue stream drys up and they will be forced to change their ways or go out of business. You the consumer have the power to turn tables on Microsoft and their Partners. If you work in a Microsoft shop go over to http://www.dice.com and http://www.monster.com and get a job in a Linux or Unix shop. Refuse to support Microsoft products period. If you have a dual boot get rid of your Microsoft Windows partition you do not need Microsoft shit Linux is ready for the Desktop.
Does this mean all the BS info I fed into the hotmail account is going to be exposed? Oh no, what a pity.
When will people learn not to trust any company that exists primarily on the internet?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
They need some reason to explain everything they know besides that they gave themselves permision to everything on your XP inhibitied computer.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Dont use Hotmail! DOH
Now I'm trying to figure out how to cancel the service.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
So, I unchecked the boxes, and guess what error popped up:
.NET Passport registration. Please type a different lastname.
Your lastname contains a word or phrase that has been reserved or is prohibited for
What the hell is that supposed to mean? How the hell can my last name be prohibited?
We knew TRUSTe was shit years ago, didn't we?
I guess now there is left no doubt whatsoever.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I checked mine as well, and they were not checked for me either. I do, however, go out of my way to look for anything, upon signing up for any service at all, that indicates they'll do any marketing whatsoever, be it internal or external. Perhaps the author of the article and others running into it are not so attentive?
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
...But in the spirit of tonight's release, my Hotmail account now belongs to Anakin Skywalker :P
:)
Bit of a relocation to Vanuatu, though...More roomy than Coruscant, I imagine
I tried to uncheck these options and got the following message:
All your personal information are belong to us.
You have no chance to privacy make your time. HA HA HA!!
What you say? For great justice!
>> Microsoft has suddenly changed the privacy preferences for all Hotmail users.
Yeah, well Microsoft can suck my ass!
millions of people
The author of the article asked Craig "FUD Man" Mundie about the new settings in Hotmail while he was giving a talk about "Trustworthy computing". That must count as one of the ironies of this year.
I have to seriously thank slashdot for this info. I've been using Hotmail since 1997 when it was still very useful and had actually entered my real information there (like countless other idiots I presume) and never bothered to change them. Recently they (MSN) started to get more penetrant with their constant warnings about deleting mail if you get near the 2mb limit and now this, not so subtle attempt to sell your info.
Well, I deleted everything there, addresses, stored mails the works, mailed everyone I knew telling them of the private mail change and urged them to change their private web mail as well. I then changed my info to some junk and mailed MSN feedback that they were now free to delete my account. I lso mailed a couple of online news sites about it to top it off.
Not bad, Microsoft makes middle ages feudal robber barons look like pillars of enlightenment, and to boot, I now have a really nice little story to fling at people when they start praising Microsoft as a "decent" company again.
Anybody know if Hotmail has been officially moved
over to W2K?
Watching Microsoft deal with "consumers" is like being an orderly in the coma ward, and walking in on the head physician while he's raping unconscious patients in their hospital beds.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
This proves to be a big mistake. After all, MS is wathing it's flock.
I am now locked out of Passport. Thats right, no hotmail, no profile access, nothing. Instead I get this...
"We are required by U.S. law to get your parent's permission before allowing you to continue to use Hotmail. We use Kids Passport to get your parent's permission so you can start using Hotmail right away. To get started, answer the question below.
And in a cute purple, pink, and yellow box it asks if my parents are with me, yes or no.
.NET Passport account. To provide your consent, follow these steps:
.NET Passport account, or register for a free .NET Passport and then sign in.
.NET Passport.
Saying yes takes me to this informative page.
Dear Parent,
A U.S. federal law requires Hotmail to get parental consent before it can collect personally identifiable information from your child. As a result, your child needs your consent to register for a
1 Sign in using your
2 Provide consent for your child to use Hotmail and
3 Verify you are an adult by providing a valid credit card number if you have not already done so. There is no charge for using this service.
They now consider me a child, and want my credit card number to prove otherwise. Believe it.
Anyone want to voluteer to be my parent and unlock my account? MS only needs your CC#
Since when does this surprise anyone?
Get a hotmail account, and their super-efficient software engines have you on spam lists within hours.
Before, they just spammed you.
Now they've now given you a checkbox that they will ignore, and *then* spam you.
Nothing to see here...move along.
Go, Springboard, Go!
Ms' little dances and tricks are making me wonder if they are indeed having some cashflow problems. They might have $40billion supposed cash but that could very possibly be the result of some fancy accounting, just like an ex energy concern was supposedly well endowed in cash until someone decied to look at the books a bit more closely.
And, to be accurate, Yahoo didn't even do this. Yahoo opted people in to Yahoo's own internal mailings. They didn't opt people in to sharing their information with third parties, as Hotmail has done.
Hotmail's policy change goes far further, and lets the genie out of a bottle it can't fit back in just by changing your prefs back, because once your email addy is sold, it's out there forever.
This actually makes Yahoo look good by comparison.
Kevin Fox
I don't think you necessarily need to own your own domain. There are some excellent pay for e-mail sites that support IMAP (sorry, POP sucks for me):
-> http://www.fastmail.fm - This is my provider. Excellent features, and you can even set your MX pointer to point to them. $20/year I think for 100MB IMAP + tons of features. Totally bad-ass.
-> http://www.mailsnare.net - I had a friend who went through these people, and although they don't support MX pointers, they seem to offer some pretty good bang for your buck. How about 100MB IMAP account for $15/year (+ setup fee)? At that price, why would anyone use Hotmail except for garbage accounts?
FastMail.fm also offer free accounts with 10MB. I would trust them more than Microsoft. Of course, it's cheap to upgrade your account and you get tons of cool features.
Subject: Changed Email Accounts!
Dear Friends,
I am going to have to delete this account soon, so will you all please start using
[insert email address here]
Thanks all,
[name]
> What's the cheapest hosting you can get? $15 a month? Over a hundred a year at least.
What planet are you from?!
Try $15 per year .
It's true that raw disk capacity isn't their only cost :-) But CPUs keep gaining performance, and wholesale internet bandwidth keeps getting cheaper. Labor for managing the space doesn't keep getting cheaper, though there's some downward pressure given the current dot-com bust, and system management automation software should keep getting more powerful, reducing the amount of sysadmin time per Hotmail customer.
* 20GB drive for $100 then; $100 is now about 100 GB, depending on what's on sale. (More often 60-80GB, if you don't catch a really good sale.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hey why don't we: Forward all our hotmail spam to abuse@hotmail.com? I know we'll get cut off after a few emails, but if all of slashdot does it.... Lord knows we slashdot websites left and right... We'd have to get it with outlook or OE, or for those brave hearted and determined enough to do it manually from the website: (god love em). If we all send a few emails their way, they will be punished rather well.
Oh yeah, and subscribe abuse@hotmail.com to all the gay porn you can...
Lousy facepalm.
Connection to host registernet.passport.com is broken
Liberty.
The 'net is so full of money making schemes, it makes me sick.
All things in internet are FREE, just repeat it until it comes to you.
1-2MB is enough for most people for freemail space if they read their email every day or two. But if you don't catch up really often, a bad Sircam attack or a lot of spam with attached decoration can easily burn that space. There was this guy in India who kept sending me this 200 KB file in order to have my advice. Several times per day. It wasn't an account I use very often, and it has a high limit, and every six months or so I go clean up 500 spams.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I don't see what people are talking about. Some guy says a new hotmail account is loaded with 170 spam messages in a couple hours after it is created. I created an account two weeks ago and have logged into it every day. I have gotten ZERO emails (only ones from MS about their services). I set up the new account EXCLUSIVELY for seeing how long it would take to get spam without posting the address ANYWHERE. Two weeks and nothing so far.
Works fine in wine
Some Links that explain it http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rule maker000217.htm?ref=yhoolnks and http://my.zacks.com/newsroom/display_znews.php3?id =1424 and http://www.thelinuxshow.com/009_view.shtml and http://www.wweek.com/html/business031099.html and http://www.billparish.com. Bill Gates and Microsoft are broke and they are running around like bums with a tin can.
I dont understand the fuss. There are so many
better providers of freemail around (bigger space,
faster, pop) which do not use such an offensive
way to deal with customers. So just delete your
account, tell MS to delete your private
data and use another freemailer.
I promise you free sex, beer and rock'n'roll!
... [6 months pass, eula change]...I promise you free sex only with these mammals (see reference for complete list) ...
... [6 months pass, eula change]...I promise you free beer only if you pay for it, the beer we are delivering conducts to all these terms ...
...[6 months pass, eula change]...I promise you free rock'n'roll but only if you agree to listen to 23 hours of "partner messages daily ...
And there you are, 1.5 years later you find yourself fucking an opossum, drinking disgusting beer and listeting to it-anthems on background 23 hours a day.
And yes, this is perfectly legal. Or can you spot a difference between this story and how Hotmail treated their "customers" after Microsoft took control.
Of course you realise is just Novell's demonstration system for Novell NetMail 3.1. It works and has calendars and I have never received spam into myrealbox account. There are no service guarantees and expect it to not be available all the time and this is where they beta test new versions before releasing them to real use. ps at US$15 a user with calendaring, IMAP and Web access and scaling to 10,000 users a box it is a nice solution
The german consumer organization "Stifung Warentest" made a comparative test between a lot of free e-mail services. Two of them failed, one of these were Hotmail. It was actually a very good test that tested both availability, usability, licenses etc. Hotmail failed on their license agreement and security issues.
One competitor that got a good mark was Yahoo mail.
Dybdahl.
I checked these preferences a couple days ago (on my dinosaur, pre-MSN Hotmail account), in response to an alert on a newsgroup I frequent. Sure enough, both the referenced boxes were selected.
Off the beaten topic, I signed up a different Hotmail account about a month ago so I could use the MSN Messenger service (with Trillian...shh!). The username is 16 characters long, mixed alpha/numeric and non-dictionary. As the address was created only to obtain an MSN ID, I did not use it for anything, nor give it out. (I have not even sent a message via MSN Messenger yet!) Just for fun I logged into the Hotmail account...already some nice person has offered me a special creme to enlarge my...ego. Might the two be related?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Viruses, security holes and general indifference about computer security; price-gouging licensing schemes; BSA audits; FUD about open source software; and now a breach of the privacy of Hotmail users (not to mention increasingly poor service for Hotmail). And then there's the antitrust trial, with revelations of threats and retaliation against OEM's, ISP's and software vendors; arrogant definace of the DOJ and the courts; no willingness to compomise, no insight or remorse; fabricated evidence in the courtroom; and Bill Gates on his deposition video in a seething rage, rocking back and forth in his chair, playing ignorant and obstinate, claiming not to understand simple words and not to remember crucial business decisions, only to be squarely contradicted by his own email.
When the Church of $cientology began a few years ago to confront their critics on the Internet, some of the critics began to refer to their campaign as Operation Footbullet, because the Co$ simply blundered again and again in highly public fashion. Their corruption and outright craziness became more obvious than ever before to anyone who cared to look.
Has the Micro$oft Corporation been conducting its own Operation Footbullet? Up until about two or three years ago, much of this was ignored by the media and there was almost no awareness of their excesses in the general public. And of course many people still don't pay much attention to the software industry. But anyone who pays the least bit of attention is faced with a constant stream of reports about ruthlessness and frankly criminal behavior, a profound lack of respect for consumers and business partners, and a general stench of unethical behavior that can only be overpowered by Enron's awful stink. I suppose Enron is ahead of M$ on the scales of immorality, but nevertheless, M$ is risking going down in history as one of the greediest and most ruthless plutocrats since the the robber barons of the railroad and Standard Oil days -- and those are the ones who've held the record for over a hundred years!
Of course, some people will respond that I'm exaggerating. I'll probably even get modded as Flamebait or Troll. And indeed, it really is hard to state the case against Micro$oft without sounding like a zealot, because the accusations are simply so hair-raising, it's hard for the uninitiated to believe that they're all true (this is, in fact, what I used to think about the Church of $cientology). Judge Jackson should not have shot his mouth off the way he did, but who could blame the man, he probably just couldn't help himself. The awful fact is that M$ is one of the most appalling corporate gangsters in all of history.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
This reminds me of why I couldn't use
FTP with my free web space on geocities.com.
It turned out that they decided to make
it a "premium feature" and therefore I was stuck
using their web inteface for uploads. GRRRR!
and I had a nice FTP script set up where I could
log-in and upload the files I usualy upload
with a single command.
I don't mind if a company adds premium features
to a product, but DON'T TAKE AWAY FEATURES THAT
WERE ONCE FREE AND TRY TO SELL THEM BACK! Granted
advertising dosen't pay like it used to, and
they do have to satisfy the advertisers (and the shareholders) but the practice I've mentioned should be avoided whenever possible.
This reminds me of the day I
discovered that I could no longer use
FTP with my free web space on geocities.com.
It turned out that they decided to make
it a "premium feature" and therefore I was stuck
using their web inteface for uploads. GRRRR!
and I had a nice FTP script set up where I could
log-in and upload the files I usualy upload
with a single command.
I don't mind if a company adds premium features
to a product, but DON'T TAKE AWAY FEATURES THAT
WERE ONCE FREE AND TRY TO SELL THEM BACK! Granted
advertising dosen't pay like it used to, and
they do have to satisfy the advertisers (and the shareholders) but the practice I've mentioned should be avoided whenever possible.
good thing all my personal info is fake! :)
You mean that within hours of it becoming public knowledge the problem seems to have never existsed? Wow, what a coincidence.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
If microsoft dont have enough money as it is, they are now trying to grab a few extra measely dollars? What a bunch of lowlifes.
Justin from Techhead Technology News
Let's all sign up for accounts with various Microsoft addresses as .net addresses. Then they can share in the bounty of spam they graciously offer their customers! ;P
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
I signed up to hotmail simply to get access to one of their services that you can't use without a hotmail account. I selected the "don't send me any crap" option. I've never given than name to anyone ever. Yet, I get around 20-30 mails every day telling me that I have got a university diploma, or there's a hot girl waiting to just for me.
Get a friend with a mac to sign you up on mac.com. It is a joy and it is free.
- Zav
Let me get this straight:
- It's totally free
- They provide a huge pile of hardware, software and people to keep up the site and datastores.
- They don't want money in return
- Everything but the sun costs money
So you people think that MS is a philantropic organisation? ALWAYS ask yourself when something is 'free' and the provider of the service has to spent a lot of money to give you this service for 'free': "Where's the catch?". I find this moaning about Hotmail rather silly, if you ask me. If you don't like it, get a real ISP account. Yes that costs money, start wondering where that money's for.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
If you don't like this, don't use Hotmail. Microsoft is approximately the worst, most unethical company around (save Kazaa/Sharman) so why did you expect anything different?
Options -> Member Directory
I get ten spam emails per day in my hotmail account. Which isn't too bad unless you consider that I made the account as a joke for a friend and I've only given that one person the email address. But advertisers have gotten my address from somewhere....
I'm currently got a Hotmail account, and while I've toyed with leaving it, this is the last straw for me. Can anyone suggest a good email provider with reasonable privacy, one which is not going to spam me to death or otherwise torment me??
What's in a Sig?
Very odd indeed.
Let me get this straight... if you get spammed at a myrealbox.com address, you owe them $10 per spam? I'd go broke in a few days that way.
(It may not be what they mean, but it's what it says. I hate non-negotiated contracts.)
I believe that if MS has pulled this stunt on its UK based customers, that it is liable for a £500 fine for every customer that files a complaint with the Data Protection Registrar (which if everyone did, would probably for a few hundred million sterling, or half a billion US$).
In the UK we have an act called the 'Data Protection Act' which means any companies doing business in the UK are *obliged* to require our permission to do anything outside their company with our personal data we provide to them, and breaking these rules can be swiftly and harshly punished. In extreme cases, it can result in a business being shut down entirely.
Other fringe benefits include the right to demand a company never contacts you again, and the right to demand to see *all* information a company holds about you, so you can correct this information if it is incorrect.
Why would you use Hotmail anyway?
Web-based email services are always riddled with ads, and are thorougly inconvenient.
Not to mention that a hotmail address looks completely unprofessional.
by following these simply steps
1. Don't read your Hotmail mail since it'll be mostly SPAM anyway.
2. Your mailbox will soon reach its' 2Mb limit and get "frozen"
3. Go find another e-mail service with less onerous privacy policy.
4. After a while your Hotmail account will get deleted.
Arf!
Does ANYONE on here set up Hotmail accounts using genuine information? I thought ALL Hotmail accounts, apart maybe from those set up by grannies, were using fake details.
How hard is it to find a zip code!
Would you ever knowingly provide Bill with your details?
Why hasn't someone patented the process of changing user preferences for the purpose of sell their personal information? Then they could sue other companies and create yet another revenue steam.
Someone hates these cans.
How useful it is to read the final conclusion of your email adventure before even finding out how it started. Top posters really are "Read the book backwards" sorta people, aren't they?
"Don't get mad, get a monkey!"
"Fuck" and "Microsoft" seem to be blocked as names. But creative use of spaces gets around it quite nicely.
Now wounder why I kept getting porn adds in my e-mail.
So does this mean that the "Passport" will be more secured cuz only MS accepted companies will have it?
> > >--- Original Message --- .NET Passport Support"
> > >From: no@alternate.com
> > >To: "Microsoft
> >
> > >Sent: Tue Feb 19 18:51:42 PST 2002
> > >Subject: delete my account
> > >
> > >CustomerName : don't need don't need
> > >UpdateCountry : false, false
> > >CUBirthdate : don't need
> > >BrowserVersion : don't need
> > >OperatingSystem : don't need
> > >ErrorMessage : n/a
> > >Submit : Send
> > >ContactEmailAddress : mephistopheles51@hotmail.com
> > >Country : US
> > >FirstName : don't need
> > >LastName : don't need
> > >Region : 19283
> > >PostalCode : don't need
> > >Comments : you don't need any of this information to delete my account
> > >RIGHT NOW.
> >
> >Don't Believe the Hype!*
> >*and it's all hype...
You rude fucker. Have you thought of perhaps speaking to people politely? Like 'Hi, I'd like to close my hotmail account, can you send me information how please'.
I was just logging out after turning off those options that had magically been turned on when I noticed this URL go by in the address bar
fortunately, the system was being so slow that I had time to capture it. It looks as if the protections we are supposed to have about cookies not being sent to different domains mean nothing to Microsoft. No surprise there then.
If you went to sign up for a new account, as I did yesterday, none of those boxes would be checked. You would have to check them yourself to allow, or ``opt in'' to, the information sharing.
But if you already have a Hotmail account, guess what? Microsoft has checked two of the new boxes for you, allowing it to share your e-mail address and the other registration data such as your gender, occupation and birth date.
I've a long-standing Hotmail account, it gets about 20 items of filtered Spam a day (30 a day on weekends), plus another 15 a day that get through the filter. I certainly don't want any more. I only use the account when I have to provide a valid email address on a web form (cos I don't trust any business to keep my details private) but it's still a hassle clearing out all this junk just so the account will be usable. Oh, and when I was signing up, I listed my occupation as "retired" so that marketing companies might think that I have less money to spend than a working person and leave me alone...
Yep, nobody cared when Yahoo did it... and Microsoft can't think of a frickin' idea on their own, so they probably copied this from Yahoo... Ha ha....
Juln
I was just updating another account which I set up with the first/last name "Concerned User" a while ago (I used it to send a polite "did you know you are a spam relay" message once so chose a suitable name for the purpose). After switching off those permissions I tried to update the account only to find that "User" is no longer acceptable as a last name. For that account I am now "Concerned Individual" which apparently is OK.
Is this a stupid policy implemented by idiots? It looks like it to me. I pity the people who use Hotmail for anything serious.
this response would not be acceptable. As I understand, under new privacy laws passed last year, a web site operator must delete any personal information as soon as practical on a user's request. I don't think 90 days would cut it.
Funny - my preferences continue to remain un-ticked.
Oh well, good thing I do not actualy use my hotmail account for anything.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
This just proves that customer service is completely useless. Any attempt to get them to solve a computer problem is like banging your head against a brick wall, repeatedly, for 9 hours straight.
I guess they help complete morons, but they never help me.
Sorry to ask the obvious question, but since IANAL, I'd be interested to know. If you have explicitly said you don't want a company to reveal your private details, can they legally change your mind for you? I realise that blanket statements about changing Ts&Cs without notice might apply to services like Hotmail, but that doesn't necessarily make them legal either. I would have expected this to fall foul of data protection legislation, at least in most European countries.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If you need to contact Hotmail, please choose one of the following links:
.com domain it came from (the e-mail service provider). It will look something like @service_provider_name.com.
Forgot Your Password?
To reset a forgotten Hotmail password. Follow the steps to gain access to your Hotmail account.
Need to Report Junk E-mail?
MSN Hotmail MEMBERS:
Report Spam that came from a MSN Hotmail account:
* Follow these easy steps to change your Mail Display Settings to include Full Headers: Go to MSN Hotmail Options, and click Mail Display Settings under Additional Options. Under Message Headers, set it to Full. Click OK.
* Forward a complete copy of the message, including the full message headers to abuse@hotmail.com.
Report Spam coming from a non-MSN Hotmail account:
* Follow these easy steps to change your Mail Display Settings to include Full Headers: Go to MSN Hotmail Options and click Mail Display Settings under Additional Options. Under Message Headers, set it to Full. Click OK.
* In the header, look at the last "Received:" notation to locate what
* Forward a complete copy of the message, including the full message header to abuse@service_provider_name.com. If they do not have an abuse service, forward your complaint to webmaster@service_provider_name.com.
NON-MSN Hotmail MEMBERS: Report Spam that came from a MSN Hotmail account:
Please consult the Help associated with your e-mail program to determine how to view complete (full) header information. Then forward the message with complete headers to abuse@hotmail.com.
Need Information About Advertising on Hotmail?
To obtain information about advertising on Hotmail, please send an e-mail to sales@hotmail.com.
Help us troubleshoot outages with your Hotmail Service by calling (1)(650)964-7200, 9am - 6pm Pacific Time Monday - Friday. Note: For security reasons we will not be able to provide customer support at this number, including password resets. If you have a customer service need please use one of the links above.
Microsoft retains the right to use, in whole or in part, to modify or translate your feedback, in any and all products and deliverables.
© 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. TERMS OF USE Advertise TRUSTe Approved Privacy Statement GetNetWise
I want to cancel my account dammit!
Isn't it illegal if you can't cancel your account or something?
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
DSL vrs. Cable is a good deviding line bewteen service and a digital TV/Browser in the US. The DSL companies were generally more competitive and offer better terms of service than the entertianment derrived cable companies. Mine, Cox, is one of the worst, opting for all M$ crap they think gives them control and optimize their ability to squeeze their clients. They block ports 25 and 80, forbid VNC and all forms of "servers", and charge $15/month extra for a static IP.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Mine is the same as always - unchecked. Stop being an asshole.
I just logged in using the latest Mozilla build (1.0RC2), and got the fowlling...
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later
Microsoft®
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
When Micro$oft and $cientology finally merge, they'll sue you for posting their copyrighted TOS in the net :)
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Mine WERE checked. Go figure.
Hi,
Some people have commented that what Hotmail has done is legal, because their privacy statement gives them the right to change their privacy policy at any time.
They CAN change the policy at any time, but that doesn't change the fact that what they've done contravenes their privacy statement, as read today at http://privacy.msn.com
The relevant bit is:
MSN Web sites will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft, MSN and its family of Web sites; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Microsoft, its web sites, or the public.
If you're in the UK, you can email Privacy_uk@msn.com.
Hope this is useful info.
Ironically for Microsoft, I just yesterday changed over to a myrealbox account. Far better TOS, more features, less bullshit. Bye bye, 3 Hotmail accounts chock full of spam. Bye bye, emptying my junk mail folders hourly.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I'm not a lawyer or anything but isn't this illegal?
i agreed to the first contract, not the newly altered one.
Well, it was only a matter of time.... Not that it will matter much, its not like hotmail is exactly free from spam.
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
Don't say you were born in 1999 - say you were born in 1899.
Give your address as 1600 Pensylvania Ave, or better still One Microsoft Way, Redmond.
Give your income as $1M/year or better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
"Boycott MS! Boycott Hotmail!" Didn't Slash just jun a story on calling the faceless masses a bunch of Monkies when it came to boycotting Yahoo for nearly the same reason?
The large majority of people will not hear your pleas in the crusade against free email and privacy advocation because the good out-weighs the bad for the average person. As for "all the alternatives" and "Tons of free email clients" out there. List them here. Now. Under this thread.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...just setting the junk filter to move everything to the junk folder. Then when I apply for the usual BS forms which send you an email for verification I select their addresses and say they're not junk works in reverse now, we have to tell the bleedin system unless I tell you everything is junk rather than the other way round as it should be :-(
---
And under the circumstances, there is really only one place to get one.
If you moderate me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
maybe its time to move on from the hotmail account...
The problem with IE reporting invalid HTML is that all Microsoft products that automatically generate HTML generate invalid HTML.
...."
Now, think about this: Joe web developer fires up Frontpage, and makes his page. He saves it, and loads IE - immediately IE pukes up half a dozen HTML errors, then starts on the Javascript....
Now, what do you think poor dim Joe will think? He'll think "What a piece of crap this FrontPage is! It doesn't work - I'll get something better"
So, since making FrontPage/Word/... generate good HTML is "hard" (for the guys at Microsoft....), the guys in the FrontPage team yelled over the wall at the IE guys, "Hey, can you make it so IE won't puke if we don't close our tables?" "Sure thing, George
Plus, by making the HTML so generated only work with IE, you help tie the products together (illegally extending your monopoly).
Remember, when considering a new market, Microsoft always asks themselves "And how does this help us dominate some other market?" Microsoft won't move into a market just to take over that market, they want to be able to get leverage to take over some other market too.
Example: why is it that Microsoft hasn't targeted mapping companies like Delorme for destruction? Microsoft has Streets and Trips, they could easly crush Delorme AAA MapNGo like a bug. Why don't they? Because, at this time, owning the mapping software market won't allow Microsoft to take over any other market.
So, making IE not puke on bad HTML helps Microsoft toward domination of the market for web design tools, and domination of the market for web design tools allows them to dominate the market for browsers. Doing things right doesn't.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Doesn't really matter who it's approved by if they don't follow it!
So, I whent to change my settings and the check boxes were disabled. So, view the source, search for the string where the text box is, delete the "dissabled" tags, and after saving the new HTML, reload it, uncheck the boxes, and click update.
P.S.- this method also worked to make me older than 18, he he he.
I've come not to trust just about any company that gives me a free service in exchange for my information. Therefore I never give real information. So they can sent off my information to whomever they like and I know that I won't be contacted.
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
MS Passport for:
Jake Blues
1060 West Addison
Chicago IL
July 1, 1952
Male
Musician / Guest of the state
It not only fools marketing droids, it also works good on Illinois Nazis as well!
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
What about people who was subscribing to hotmail and now they are no inform of that situation. People are stuck with hotmail.com/passport.net/msn.com account, so don't have choice to stay with MS.
Changing the rules is unfair.
MS should advise clearly all their customer of that situation.
Mess with the best, die like the rest
taken from the EvangeList
Subject: [RANT] Absolute proof that M$ sells your Hotmail address
From: "Shane Anderson"
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 17:18:43 +1100
Here is a little experiment for you to try.
1) Create a Hotmail account using random letters and numbers, say S5_44ff.vd7@hotmail.com. This way SPAM apps that just think up the addresses
from dictionary names will not find it.
2) Don't give the number to anyone, don't even check it for say 9 months.
3) Then check your account and enjoy 826 SPAM mail awaiting you.
This is what I did, and I had that many SPAM mails awaiting me.
And you M$ people complained about my tongue in cheek comment, what have you
to say about this?
The moral of the story: Do not use Hotmail!
The tongue in cheek comment he refers to: the Microsoft servers rejected the Lists mail (Shane is the lists' maintainer), saying he was a potential source for virii. :)
His comment was to not use ms mail services if you want to get all your email.
Well, since this is a macintosh list, in a sense m$ was right.
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
I reactivated my account with Hotmail after seeing this notice. The e-mail Hotmail sends upon reactivation said in the first paragraph:
"You already know Hotmail is the easy, convenient way to stay in touch with family and friends around the globe, so let us tell you something you might not know: at Hotmail we're committed to protecting your privacy. Hotmail keeps your personal information private and does not share it with any third parties, unless you choose to be listed in either the Hotmail Directory or the Internet White Pages directory."
However, the settings on my account showed that both my e-mail address and my personal information were going to be sold.
Someone posted further down that this is illegal in the UK. IANAL but as far as I can see, it's also ilegal in most of the EU.
The EU laws on data protection is where you can read the relavent material. There is also a link there to mail the EU commission on abuse of these laws.
I'm special and none of my user info was/is being shared. No boxes were checked and all that good stuff. Go me and b00 to all the Microsoft bashing. I'm sure there's a glitch somewhere.
Alive Contains A Lie
I was starting to get really aggrevated at all the spam I've been getting. I know I haven't signed up for anything in the past few months, and the few I have signed up for, I've made sure I check the "DO NOT SHARE MY INFO" box. But when the crap kept coming (sometimes multiple times in succession of the EXACT SAME E-MAIL!) I was getting pissed. Then to read this on /. this morning, I was furious. So of course I login to Hotmail and sure enough, those two boxes are checked. Hopefully now that I've unchecked those boxes, my amount of spam will drop. Sons of bitches.....
Bill Gates and his empire are truly evil and should burn in hell for their evil deeds.
It seems to me there is a double-standard going on in Yahoo! and Microsoft. When you sign up for their e-mail service you agree to their Terms of Service, which always says stuff like "I agree not to DoS the service or fraudulently use the service" and stuff like that. Clicking "I agree" is taken to be equivalent to signing a contract.
So now, they have changed our privacy settings without our knowledge or consent. Unless they can argue that their Terms of Service permit this (subject to change without notice?), they must either admit that they broke their contract or admit that they have no contract with us (my preference).
If somebody starts a class-action, I'll join it. Accountability is most needed for aggregates of persons (government, corps).
LAMP hosting on Debian, SSH, no bandwidth cap, PayPal accepted - http://secondbrainhosting.com/
So, are there any places where you can get a free e-mail account that do respect your privacy? I need something to recommend to people who'd otherwise just go with Hotmail.
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
Maybe i'm nuts, but there isn't a personal profile page at all. And my settings for newsletters and 3rd party info are all the same as they have always been. I don't suppose that anyone actually verified this?
At despammed.com they will forward your messages to an account of your choice while agressively filtering junk mail.
I use mine for any site that requires an email address for registration and I never get any junk through them.
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
I just sent a nasty note to MS too, and along with the other hate mail, it'll get ignored. The only thing I was using hotmail for was to try and stay atleast a little bit anonymous on e-bay. I went in and changed my e-bay settings to point to a different address, and viola, I am no longer going to use my hotmail account! And in 20 days, they'll deactivate it. I'm also going to put something of the *nix nature back on my workstation. After the recent slew of spyware attacks on this box, and using every possible deturnet (adaware, etc), I've decided to give up on MS all togather.
But the thing that REALLY tweaks my pierced nipples, is the fact that I spent about 1/2 an hour a day for the last 3 weeks opting out of the spam I was getting on my hotmail account, and it was actually working to some slight extent. I was down to 10 messages a day roughly, AND THEN.. I login today... 85 new messages >=/ GRAR! MS == Nazi's... All those people that are anti MS, I will now join you, cuz I no longer have ANY compassion for them.
Can all fish swim?
1) Yahoo and AOHell were first in this area, with alot more accounts... Yahoo managed to quadruple spam on the internet (in terms of traffic) in less than a month. Why shouldn't MS make some profit?
2) Um, it's free you jack offs. Hotmail is F_R_E_E... this means you don't pay for it, which means you don't have to use it if you don't want. Go away playa haters, get over your self important selves.
3) Got to the Mozilla website and check out their tech stuff/forums. I read on there weeks ago how to change the identity of the core browser so that it worked with MS sites. I don't use Mozilla much, but I know I can check my hotmai land all without problems.
Proxomitron works in Wine. Good to know.
This is absolutely the last straw. I'm switching over to Yahoo right this second!
'Johnny' it accepted fine, so from now on you all call me 'Johnny' :-)
Johnny's in America, low-tech's at the
wheel
No-one needs anyone, they don't even
just pretend
Johnny's in America
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
Johnny's in America
Johnny wants a brain, Johnny wants to
suck on a coke
Johnny wants a woman, Johnny wants
to think of a joke
Johnny's in America
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
Johnny's in America
Johnny's in America, Johnny looks up at
the stars
Johnny combs his hair and Johnny
wants pussy and cars
Johnny's in America
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
Johnny's in America
God is an American
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the words
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
Johnny's in America
Johnny's in America
-
Pray I don't alter it any further...
>
I just checked, and mine aren't checked. And yes, I am using my callsign as a username. Go ahead and look me up, and come by for a visit, if it means that much to you. Just make it a friendly visit, as my other president is Charlton Heston.
JPEG's and banners and flash animations
Popups and opt-outs and priv'cy violations
Big boobs and sleep pills and herbal ginsengs,
This is the junk that my Hotmail box brings
Fake "" tags, disable Java,
Disable plugins from Macromedia
Limit the things that your browser can do,
This is the junk hotmail forces on you
When the dot nets,
When the hail storms,
When the passport pries,
I simply sign up for more hotmail accounts
And continue to falsify
ActiveX scripting and ASP pages
Profiteeting in which hotmail engages,
Exploiting users who don't have a clue,
This is what people at Microsoft do
Bending o'er backwards to meets terms of service,
Changing agreements that made me feel nervous
Clauses, execptions will bite you some day,
This legal mumbo has pushed me away
When the terms change,
When the box's checked,
It's my Waterloo
I'll never sign up for more hotmail accounts
From now on I'll use...
Netscape mail!
They are two guys who have written a complete Outlook clone (well sort of) in DHTML. It works really well (if you're an IE only sort of person) and costs about 30 quid a year iirc. You also get POP and IMAP access. Their DHTML webmail client blows Hotmail away, it's got stuff like drag and drop, just like a software email client.
Actually, it's not quite true that Opera renders the same way regardless of the "identify as" setting. Certain "features" are added/removed depending on the setting.
Nothing too vicious, but for example if you choose "Identify as MSIE 5.0", calls to the JavaScript object document.all will be successful. If you choose "Identify as Opera", the same calls will fail. It's explained in detail here.
Stop crying about MS, you're just about doing the same thing...
n/t
Save time now so you can waste it later
See FTC COPPA.
Hotmail is just complying with the law.
I just checked my hotmail account, and all of my checkboxes were still un-checked.
Common sense is not so common.
Best money I've ever spent...
Went to hotmail to change my personal prefs as described in the story above, and got this source (no, really, I got the _source_; the page wasn't even rendered) using Mozilla 1.0 rc2 on Windows 2000 (greater and less than symbols to brackets):
[html dir="ltr"]
[head]
[meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"]
[title]Browser Not Supported[/title]
[link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/1033/C/PPNetScape.css"]
[/head]
I think we can see where this is headed -- browser's not supported and I can't change my personal preferences to opt-out! If you're not using a ".NET uplevel browser", you can't even fight the change.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
You can sign up with netscape.net with only bogus John Doe information and no e-mail confirmation address. This way, even if they give your info away, it won't matter, except maybe to John Doe...
BTW, what is the best age to use in web forms? If I sign up with age 99, then I get viagra adverts and if I sign up with age 20, then I get 'enlarge your penis' and 'enlarge your boobs' adverts. Can't win - so therefore I tried the totally bogus approach, which works with Netscape.
I can't believe it says "MSN Hotmail - More Useful Everyday". Sure is "more useful!"
So who's more likely to spam me, a company that knows nothing about me, or a company that "knows" I'm from Uzbekistan and was born on 1st January 1901 (or whatever crap I filled in)? I suspect the company that thinks they know stuff about me.
I just checked into my Hotmail account, went to options, profile, and my previously-defined "do not spam or share" preferences were still intact.
Do any of you kneejerk MS-haters actually verify anything before you bitch about them?
You're kidding right? This is flamebait. Passport will never work because Microsoft will not agree on an open standard. What they haven't realized and will probably never realize is that you can't force people to do anything.
The tighter you pull back on the leash the harder the dog is gonna pull.
I changed the user agent to FlapJack 3.07, and I'm able to chage the prefs with out problems.
I spend so much time trying to convince people not to deal with Microsoft, that hearing stories like this make want to laugh at all of you that do.
The one laugh I am really looking forward to is when they screw over all their Passport customers. But that may not happen for a while, until they've found some way to make all other authentication services illegal somehow.
Except it didn't work that way.
I am a paid user and they still reset my options. I don't really care about the $10, but I wonder where I can go and not be sold. (I was also a yahoo user.) Watch out guys, the next place I choose will reset options next!
Darn, the option to block addresses or domains won't let me block hotmail.com. It doesn't complain, just doesn't add it to the list when I try.
My Yahoo account is superior though - they allow me to block all of yahoo.com. [evil grin]
"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." --Harlan Ellison
Funny thing. I have three accounts on hotmail that I check for various groups. One had the boxes checked, one did not, and one had to be reactivated. When I reactivated, that had the boxes checked. Nowhere in the reactivation agreement does it say anything about sharing your email or other information. It just points people to the privacy policy, which as far as I can tell hasn't been changed yet.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
OK well why dont we then go OPTIN the employees of M$ with a nice list of their names and email and see how they like it?
The awful fact is that M$ is one of the most appalling corporate gangsters in all of history.
HA!
If you knew anything, anything at all about JD Rockefeller or JP Morgan's operations and tactics at the turn of the last century in the oil and rail industries respectively, you would shit in your hat and praise God for Bill Gates.
Not to defend that schmuck, but we're talking about two entirely different leagues of malfeasance. You bitch about BSA audits? Try hired jackbooted thugs & private police fucking killing you for talking smack about the company or trying to organize a union. Gates doesn't even exist in the same league.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
What you're looking for is spamgourmet: "self-destructing disposable email addresses, titanium strength spam blocking, very short learning curve". You set up a disposable (free) account with them, tell it how mny emails to allow, then give email address to untrustworthy individuals. They allow the number of emails to go through, then eat the rest. Can be reconfigured, or even created on the fly. Cool stuff!
I'd say go to http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet / -mail/Free/Web-Based?tc=1/... I found "Searched within the category Google Directory for free webmail. Results 1 - 10 of about 1,030"
You'll probably find that 2/3 of the listings either don't work or went to pay-for-pay... but that still leaves plenty of places to replace hotmail.
There are also a shitload of sites with free website databases.
I know this because I had to replace my free webmail account on onebox some months ago when they went to a pay system. However, finding one that supported the service I most needed, remote notification of incoming mail to my real account so I won't have to log in every time I get spammed was very difficult. Finding that took several hours. Finding one that supports POP3 will take a while. If you just want a simple free webmail box, that should take just a few minutes.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Dude,
yes, this is completely off topic and uncalled for, but........
PEPSI?!?! how in the hell can you drink that noxious, over-sugared, Brittney Spears supported crap?
I shall assume that you are some uninformed Northerner, as Pepsi is based in New York, but it is not too late to develop some good taste. Try some Coke, or even Royal Crown. It'll help those late night coding runs.....
Pepsi. For those who think dumb.
~mantis
The main reason I did this was because I've seen other people claim that they hardly ever got spam in their hotmail accounts. Interesting. Maybe they're using hotmail's junkmail filter and just aren't noticing? (I have it off)
As a side note, I checked my options, and everything was still set to off.
and then microsoft can boast more passport members, you idiot
Your mother implements multi-vendor protocols without synergy
This is interesting, my choices werent checked. I may have one little difference though, Im set as 'govt/military'. That is the only thing I can think of that would cause them to not change mine...
"Derp de derp."
If you use mozilla exclusively, you're stuck.
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later."
I can't get to the "personal profile" page.
"Microsoft®
Mmmm more spam. Thanks msft.
"Peace, Love and Apathy"
Remember: HoTMaiL is for mail. Log out when you are done. Click "shared computer" when you log in. Other sites will have no idea who you are. Problem solved.
I have not read the terms of service, but I'll bet they reserve the right to change the terms at any time without any notice. I read through the Yahoo TOS back when they did exactly the same thing and noticed that no matter what your preferences say, they still reserve the right to sell your information to 3rd parties who promise not to resell it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I already have one hotmail account and any relation to reality is a mere coincidence!
Try Old Dutch RAVE Salt & Pepper. I eat them when I'm stoned.
And thank you for pointing out the painfully obvious. It proves that you have nothing to contribute, but lack the self discipline to refrain from responding anyway.
It was posted as received, for my convenience.
I suggest you take a breather, and step away from the computer, and maybe do something about that internet elitism you seem to be suffering from.
Regards.
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
Drat ... Following the example of the posters here ("put in fake information "), I put in unbelieveable info ... and turns out that MSN requires the parent to be present when creating/modifying the profile and the parent has to have a .NET or PAssport account. Has anybody worked with this before (either at MSN or otherwise??)
... damn you /. for you have taken my hot mail away from me :)
In the mean time
MSNBC.com now has an article on this.
One interesting note:
Users who sign up for Hotmail today will find all three boxes are unchecked by default, a sign that Microsoft is committed to giving users more control over where their information is distributed, he said.
But everyone who signed up before the personal setting change -- a large proportion of Hotmail's estimated 110 million users -- currently has the privacy settings set to give Microsoft permission to share the data.
I didn't quite parse your acronym. Were you trying to say, "Your Victimization May Vary?"
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Whereas you yourself are a stellar example of human courtesy, only once jumping to an erroneous conclusion and calling a faceless stranger "fucker".
If you'd bothered to read what was posted you'd see that I was very courteous to the actual human beings with whom I was corresponding, but firm and a little incredulous because I didn't believe I was going to receive a straight answer (and I did not).
The section you quote is from a form on hotmail's website, by which more information was solicited than was given during registration, and was included for that reason to support my argument that Microsoft intends to use hotmail to reliably deliver spam to "188 million users". I was understandably dismayed by the implication that hotmail needed all that information to close my account; it was not, and is not, necessary. Only the fact that the person with access to the account (the password) wanted to close that account was necessary. In my opinion, it should have been easier.
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
Are the options really turned on, or are they just checked by default? This is a pretty standard procedure. On many sites, I have to turn this off every time I make a change. I suspect that this is what M$ is doing. I don't like M$ any more that the next Linux guy, but I think the author is incorrect in assuming that just because boxes are checked when you go to a page means that the database actually contains those values.
On attempt to go into the "personal profile" page, I get:
.NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.
Microsoft®
Well, they let me read all other pages, why not this one?
I would swear blind I unchecked all privacy based options and also and directory listing options when I signed up to Hotmail, Passport et al.
After checking hotmail, all were ticked, even the 'list me in the public domain spammers index the MS calls a directory.
Also, can anybody confirm where in the agreement we have to be 'truthful' about out details. One way of making sure my privacy is protected is to either not provide details, or not provide correct details.
Good point. Guard that treasure chest.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
That's when you post user/pass of all your dozens of accounts on the web. Oh dear... =)
If its true that M$ is giving this info away to third parties, then they could be in some hot water. This is from their privacy statement:
MSN does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. MSN may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party. In addition, MSN may share data with trusted partners to help us perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to Microsoft, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information
Changing the useragent helps in MANY situations. Those bearshare gnutella clients won't let web browsers normally download from them, but they sure allowed me in when I told them I was using MiniatureGiantSpaceHamsterBrowser. I guess the bearshare programmers are Baldur's Gate fans.
I'll bet that followup article was interesting. I'll never know -- MORONS USED A FRIGGIN' STYLE SHEET TO LOCK THE FONT AT A MICROSCOPIC SIZE!!!
Sheesh! Is html REALLY that hard to grok?
You pay $20 per month. He is talking about $20 per year.
Ill tell you what I did: I closed my Hotmail account and hope never to be bugged again by Hotmail. I think everybody that thinks Microsoft didnt had the right to share our information without our consent, should do the same thing! Lets close Hotmail for good!
I'll tell you why. At least ONE of the following conditions apply for them:
* Those people voted for Bush.
* Those people watched too much Big Brother.
* Those people listens to Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears "music".
* Those people fear Anarchism.
* Those people believe that Fidel Castro is a genocide.
* Those people believe that software piracy is like terrorism.
* Those people just are stupid.
--- "pero toda poesía es hostil al capitalismo"
They weight their marketing data based on account usage. Unused accounts are unimportant and ignored. Only used accounts are weighted into their marketing information.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.