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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.
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!
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
You fail to see the genius of this plan.
For months they have been trying to get people to sign up with their Premium Email package which expands the mailbox to 10Mb and lasts forever (or something like that). People have not been signing up. It's simply too easy to create a brand new address when one fills up, so Microsoft then has to deal with 2 accounts (and so on and so on and so on) for each customer who has used up their allotted space.
Enter spam. If Microsoft can make it intolerable for ordinary users (non-Premier club members) to use Hotmail because the speed in which the account fills with spam is simply too fast, then they will push away those users who are not interested in paying for the service. Or they will attract the payers by making it intolerable to use the service otherwise.
Bottom line: They reduce the total traffic on their site by sloughing off the leeches (including yours truly), and increase revenue at the same time.
The idea is brilliant.
I have been pwned because my
It doesn't matter. All they had to do is sell it once to some unscrupulous company in the minutes when the box was unchecked, and the dammage is done. There's no web form that can undo it. The effectively have licence to the data in your account during that brief period. Ingenious of them. Glad I don't have an account there.
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.
People smart enough to use mozilla should be smart enough to not trust their personal info to microsoft either.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05