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Microsoft Search Advertisers Get Personal
Alascom writes "According to this AP report, Microsoft is raising privacy concerns by allowing search advertisers to use personal information. Yusuf Mehdi, a corporate vice president with the MSN unit, said Microsoft has gathered this personal information by tracking users who have logged into its Hotmail e-mail program or other Microsoft Web sites in order to allow advertisers to target their ads to a specific audience."
Did you really expect anything less from Hotmail or Microsoft? I mean come on, this is a website that asks you (auto selected) if you want to subscribe to about 50+ different personalized newsletters when you sign up. I don't see how people can expect their privacy to be respected when the service is free.
I guess we should have read the license agreement....
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
Once people get a sniff that Microsoft is playing dirty in the search they have even less incentive to move from google.
I say bring it on.
And you don't think this happens anywhere else? Read the TOS of Google, Yahoo and many other websites you visit.
Hotmail are using personal data to target ads. Microsoft suck!
If only Google did this sort of thing with GMail. That'd be O.K, because they're Google. Google arn't evil, like those bastards at Microsoft.
I got some really scary ads that have been keeping me up at night! How do they know I HAVE A SMALL PENIS! OMG this is a travesty. I should have given them a fake zip code and should have lied about my penis size on the questionnaire.
But with 95% less ethics!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The biggest problem with advertising reamins that products advertised are not interresting to me.
I have yet to find a advert for cheap merch pressing or jobs for young webdesigners. Instead i get bombarded with ads for crazy frog ringtones.
As long as they dont read my email line by line it's FINE with me
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Targeted advertising? Wow, that Microsoft sure does always seem to innovate...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
From the article:
"Microsoft's paid search platform will provide detailed -- but not personally identifiable -- information, such as gender, age and location, for many people who use its search engine, allowing advertisers to target their ads to a specific audience."
Privacy concerns my ass. This is just one more "Micro$oft is the Devil!" scare story.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I'm all for bashing MS, but if we call them on this let's not leave out our most sacred cow, Google.
Customary slashdot anti-Microsoft, I hate them post
Nothing costs nothing
with their GUID server and attempts to make cookies cross domains [bugtraq] bypassing any security restrictions the browser has implemented, nice huh
the answer is to just block all MSN sites, why micorosft are allowed to produce an OS and then re-direct users to its homepage by default (and average user doesnt know how to change their homepage), how anti-trust/competitives hasnt pulled them on it shows you what they can get away with
I've witnessed a mass-exodus from Hotmail in the last few months. Complaints range from:
1. Being asked to type in a human-verifier code everytime you send an email
2. Server Busy errors for hours or even days
3. Account unavailable due to maintenance issues for hours or even days
4. Horrible interface
5. Spotty spam protection from everyone except the copious amount that Hotmail sends you
I have a Hotmail account that's about 7 years old that I still check from time to time, but I can't imagine using it on a day-to-day basis.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I live in Sweden, where this sort of thing is illegal unless you ask your customer for permission first.
Could this spell problems for Microsoft Sweden, or MS in any other (most likely european) country with the same laws?
Yes, MS has registered and is using hotmail.se.
From the article:
Microsoft's paid search platform will provide detailed -- but not personally identifiable -- information, such as gender, age and location, for many people who use its search engine, allowing advertisers to target their ads to a specific audience.
Notice they aren't releasing any information (like your name, etc.) that would explicitly identify the person to the advertisers.
I don't see a real problem with privacy here, it just looks like generalized demographic info that is useful to the advertisers.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
FTA: "Microsoft's paid search platform will provide detailed -- but not personally identifiable -- information, such as gender, age and location, for many people who use its search engine, allowing advertisers to target their ads to a specific audience."
Yeah, right. You target an ad to a person, they respond, and now you've got their age, location, etc. Once again the rights of the corporation outweight the rights of the individual.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Yusuf Mehdi, a corporate vice president with the MSN unit, said Microsoft has gathered this personal information by tracking users who have logged into its Hotmail e-mail program or other Microsoft Web sites, and then matching the data they provided with publicly known demographics, such as average income for a particular ZIP code.
From Yusuf Mehdi bio:
In addition, Mehdi is also responsible for leading Microsoft's platform efforts for online advertising and digital marketing with responsibility for brand, direct marketing, pay for performance and business intelligence systems.
From the article:
Microsoft has made its name selling software, he (analyst David Garrity) said, and the new model of giving a product away and making money from advertising requires a steep learning curve.
and I love this name:
Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Microsoft's efforts are part of an industrywide trend of using personal information to garner advertising dollars.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
This is like Microsoft (and others, to be fair) selling lists to panhandlers of targets and where they live that are more likely to be a soft touch. And it is passed off as an "enhanced web user experience"
(This sig has been removed at the request of the patent holder for Sigs.)
There's a world of difference between that IMO.
MSN Hotmail
.NET Passport, which you will use for signing in to your Hotmail account. If you cancel this .NET Passport account, you will automatically cancel your Hotmail account. For more information about .NET Passport, visit http://www.passport.net and read the .NET Passport Privacy Statement.
E NT ARY
Hotmail collects information during the registration process, including first and last name, country, region or state, Zip or post code, time zone, gender, birth date and occupation. You may update your registration information at any time from within your Hotmail account by clicking the "Options" button on the navigation bar, and then clicking on the "Personal" icon.
When you create a Hotmail account, you will also simultaneously create a
Your registration information is used to operate the site, for demographic statistics, and to display appropriate individualized advertisements. New users will receive a Hotmail welcome letter explaining the features provided by the service. Hotmail may also send periodic member letters, from which you may not unsubscribe without closing your account, to announce important service changes, new features, technical issue updates and information about other products and services.
Hotmail is concerned about controlling unsolicited commercial e-mail, or "spam." Hotmail will not sell, lease or rent its member lists to any third parties. While Microsoft continues to actively review and implement new technology, such as expanded filtering features, there is no currently available technology that will totally prevent the sending and receiving of unsolicited e-mail. Using tools such as the Inbox Protector and being cautious about the sharing of your e-mail address while online will help reduce the amount of unsolicited e-mail you receive. For more information on how to best use Hotmail's tools, please contact abuse@hotmail.com.
http://privacy1.msn.com/fullnotice.armx#SUPPLEM
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Yet another reason not to use Microsoft Search.
OK, you signed up to use "free" e-mail from the largest corporate player known for it's less-than-ethical tactics and you expected to get something for nothing from Microsoft? Yikes, people. I refused from the get go. My gut said it was a gimmick.
.EDU. [That and I'm a bit of a masochist].
Nothing is ever free from a corporation--they've got people studying consumers to find out how to make a buck off of them. That's no conspiracy theory--it's just corporate life. That's why I work at an
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
From the article: "That's probably the thing I feel worst about over the last few years -- not making our own R&D investment," Ballmer said. Umh, wasn't there a certain monkey dance that is regretted more?
How .NET Passport Will Not Use Your Personal Information
Use of Shared Information by .NET Passport Participating Sites and Services .NET Passport participating sites and services with whom you choose to share the information can use it for a variety of purposes. These can include personalizing your experience at their sites and reducing registration time by using information in your .NET Passport account to pre-fill their registration forms. .NET Passport participating sites and services may share your personal information and/or unique identifier with third parties in order to fulfill a service or transaction you may have requested. In addition, participating sites may share your personal information, but not your Unique ID, with other third parties as permitted by their privacy policies.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
If they go off the contents of my Hotmail inbox, I'll get direct contact with people that can supply me with the following:
A larger penis!
A better sex life!
Breast Implants! Woohoo!
And a spic and span clean credit report!
MSN Search here I come!
That is personal information. There's nothing stopping them from giving advertisers personally identifiable info. They just say they will not. I wouldn't trust Microsoft Passport, so why would I trust this?
/. when you see bogus charges showing up on your credit card.
When they weren't even trying to share personal information people have been able to get into their systems and take it (e.g. using a simple URL to get into any Passport account). Now that they want to intentionally share some of it we should trust them? No thanks. Don't come crying to
Developers: We can use your help.
I always try to put the oldest age that will be accepted on registering for anything, just to see what ridiculous numbers it can take. I suppose that means I'm in line for scads of denture and depends ads....
1) Collect personal information for years with privacy notice consisting of twenty pages of legal language displayed in a 4"x1" scroll box. First line reads "Your privacy is our foremost concern." Last line reads "Terms may be changed at any time without notice."
2) Don't do anything until you've got enough information to be valuable.
3) Change terms without notice.
4) Sell personal information and PROFIT!
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Followed up with exactly the same thing that Google, Yahoo!, and many other companies do:
"For example, a car company could choose to have Microsoft display its sports car link when a man types in certain keywords, and a link to an SUV model when a woman uses the search criteria."
Not a privacy concern. It's using the Internet's advantages to the benefit of 1) the advertiser and 2) the consumer (potentially).
If I'm surfing for "SUV" then maybe I would rather see sponsored links for SUV companies rather than random, unrelated ads for shower gel. As an advertiser, I know that I can buy a billboard for n dollars and have no idea how many people drove by the billboard, made inquiries into my company as a result of the billboard, or became customers are a result of the billboard. With the Internet, I can do all of that - it lets me be a more informed advertiser, use my money more appropriately, and improve general service for customers.
OK: that won't fix all tracking (including this M$ one) but it helps.
It could get scarier!
I went into a discussion on Binary Revolution Radio (http://www.binrev.com/radio/) episode #80 about the possibility (or rather INEVITABILITY) of Microsoft combining all of its databases from all of its individual services (hotmail, MSDN, spaces, search, etc...) and data mining them for common data. Each individual privacy policy becomes meaningless. They may not sell your data, but they can combine it and put together a pretty powerful profile about you.
The key, and the reason that I pointed it out on this episode, is the new Microsoft genuine program. All of the other databases could have been joined on names, phone numbers, and other PII (Personally Identifiable Information) which is not always reliable. With the new "genuine program" they get a hash of your system as part of the process that uniquely ties you to that computer.
With one anchor like that that *is* reliable (most of the time) they now have a way to tie your visits to your accounts from that PC to all of your other MS service accounts. For example, logging into hotmail from that "marked" PC.
It is not rock solid and may not be completely provable (people do use other peoples computers) but it will work most of the time. That is a very scary data warehouse that could provide extremely targeted advertising which would fetch top dollar from advertisers.
--- The revolution will be digitized! - http://www.binrev.com/ ---
How is this any different than Google trolling through your email? Oh, it's not quite as bad, but since it's Microsoft, it's Pure Evil? And of course since Google is our Love Child, it's OK for them to do something that in reality is twice as offensive? Ah Slashdot....
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Delete your cookies!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Who cares? Who actually uses MS "SEARCH" anyway? It sucks, and if they want it to suck even more, they'll incorporate 'targeted ads'. If they want to follow in the footsteps of AOL thats fine by me. They're going to be fighting AOL for a segment of "very large but mentally insignificant" web-users.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
I can see how this a user based system instead of conent based system, but how is the end result any different than google ad sense. Selective and refined placement of things I may want. In the execution of the process may be where we all start to hate it! Google ads are generally simple text and non-obtrousive to what I really trying to do on the site. I doubt that microsoft will be so kind in their positioning and placement. My problem, and possibly others problem is not how the ads are selected, but how they are presented.
From their terms of service and privacy info.
http://privacy1.msn.com/
These are just random bits I collected that related to advertisers and personal information.
Also you may want to read the pasport privacy link, as this is how msn connects all their sites.
http://www.passport.net/Consumer/Privacy Policy.asp?PPlcid=2057
At some sites, MSN collects personal information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. MSN may also collect demographic information, such as your post code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites. Information collected by MSN may be combined with information obtained from other Microsoft services and other companies
The information we collect may be combined with information obtained from other Microsoft services and other companies.
MSN may also place Web beacons from third parties on our site in order to compile aggregated statistics and to help determine the effectiveness of our joint promotional or advertising campaigns. MSN prohibits Web beacons on our site from being used by third parties to access your personal information.
Use of Third Party Ad Networks
The majority of the online banner advertisements you see on MSN Web pages are displayed by MSN.
Your registration information is used to operate the site, for demographic statistics, and to display appropriate individualized advertisements.
In addition, MSN allows other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, to display advertisements on MSN Web pages. Some of these ad networks may place a persistent cookie on your computer. Doing this allows the ad network to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad networks may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you.
TruePunk | Games
How can you expect privacy when you're giving your info to another person?
Microsoft didn't force you to login to hotmail. And the fact that you happen to have private information there is your own damn fault.
It would be different if your ISP was giving out your emails or other details since you pay them for the service...
And you really don't think Google isn't laughing at the stock of "private" information stored in their gmail archives?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If you do and you don't want to feel free to use my "real information":
Bob Smith 1313 Mockingbirdlane Beverly Hills Califonia 90210 555-555-5555 (h) 555-555-5555 (c) alternate email ifjeufeiehhc@yahoo.com
The real question is do they feel guilty charging for junk data?
Still, it makes a change from a "Microsoft Get The Bulls^H^H^H^H^H Facts" advert popping up on every Linux article...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I guess it would help the search if I actually used real information for the account.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Agreed. Adverts are shown on the search results whether I like it or not, the 'personal' information they have on me isn't much (especially if I've lied about anything they don't need to know) so I'd much rather see ads that might actually be useful instead of some random list.
GMail placed context sensitive ads based on people's private emails. In competition (maybe not in direct competition, but still in competition) MSN is going a step further and doing this. In competition Google or someone else might go a step even further and do something even worse. That's why even a small case of invasion of privacy is bad -- it leads to competition in unhealthy areas and it gives more justification for bigger transgressions -- and that's why some of the hue and cry raised over gmail was justified. (And of course, there is also the justifiable argument that even a small case of invasion of privacy is not acceptable)
I'm sorry, I know this is going to really piss some people off here at slashdot, but I actually LIKE those little ads on the sidebar that are specified to what I'm searching for. Especially when I'm attempting to find something I want to buy. There has been many a time when I'm trying to find something via Google, or I get an email special in my Gmail account, that the links on the side take me to something even better. Not all ads are neccessarily scams. I mean, its not like they're installing software on my computer, so I just really don't see the point in arguing over this. To me, it really ENHANCES my search for products more than it hinders.
If Microsoft sees this, and they see that it'll bring in some more revenue, why SHOULDN'T they try something like this?
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
Which leads me to wonder just how many people actually put in real information?? I mean, I registered on Hotmail once, and gave a zipcode of 90210, which is at least 20,000 away from my *real* zipcode... That was a few years ago, when the first stories linking Hotmail and junk mail came out. The story I vaguely remember included a "researcher" registering an id that was supposedly a young female, and within about 30 minutes junk mail started to accumulate offering penis enlargement cream and other irrelevant services. My Hotmail address never scored much crap, though.
Typical Slashdot 14 year olds hatting on Microsoft for something pretty common in the real world of advertisements. I wonder how shocked some people would be to know that TV commercials are targeted at a certain programs audience.
We're Microsoft! Trust us! Give us your personal data, your messages, your surfing habits, your contact lists, your banking info (solely for billing purposes, we assure you), your family, friends and bachelor party photos. If we weren't trustworthy, do you think the Justice Department would let us keep our declared monopoly? Here, have some candy, baby stranger...
--
make install -not war
Google is the future. True me!
Some times *I* forget I'm not really William Braski with all the spam that gets sent there.
No sig for you!!
Did you really think Microsoft would give you anything for free???
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
"Free" services must be paid for with other revenue streams. In this case, as with many others, it is by selling more effective advertising. If you don't like it, pay for e-mail out of your own pocket. The control you gain over your own privacy is well worth the pittance that it costs.
And the amount you pay need not be in cash, either, if you happen to have a friend with a mail server and a link to the network. Would you like a shell account for a measly two beers per month, that you were probably spending anyway?
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
So all the adds I would get if I used the Micro$oft search would be targeted adds for penis enlargement!
Gotta love hotmail, create an account and instantly start getting spam without ever doing anything with the account.
"Oh, it's not quite as bad, but since it's Microsoft, it's Pure Evil?"
Pure Evil is the fact that I can't log in, after a couple failed logins. Yes there's a wait to prevent password-guessing, but I shouldn't have to wait a week.
what do you want from guys like MS? free-email?
looking for a free secure email? check those guys-no adds or any bs www.loftmail.com
Only on slashdot (and when talking about Microsoft) could that comment be considered a joke ;-)
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
But would you trust Google with your e-mail just because they SAY they won't use the information they mined from it for bad things?
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Keep reading. Also from the article:
In my book, that's where they cross the privacy line.
How many of you are giving out real information?? It would be pretty silly to do so. Are you giving out bank account or credit card info? Or your address? Hell, how many people log in as "Bill_Gates_*? Why is this an issue? If you send out plain text over the net, you may as well broadcast it on the radio. That's my assumptions when I send out email. I have no expectations of any kind of privacy when I'm using "company"(hotmail, ISP, job, etc.) equipment. I will never expect any as long I need to use somebody else's wire. You shouldn't either.
What?
How about a check box that is default off, but there are nagging hints that you should turn it on:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[x] click here to make ads you see more interesting
by displaying ads targeted for your location
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Then you can see how users respond to that.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Right, google would never have any any security or privacy issues
No, I don't trust them either. But I can understand if others would trust Google. So far they haven't proven untrustworthy (that I know of).
I use a Yahoo email account for junk and hosted email for everything else. Since my hosting provider doesn't work with advertisers they have little reason to cull information from me.
Developers: We can use your help.
This is only microscopically worse than G-Mail scanning all your personal mail and doing the same thing.
Yet on Slashdot, NO ONE cares about that!
Lets get our philosophes straight. If this upsets you then so should G-Mail, big time. They are 90% the same thing. Either stop using G-Mail and start panning it for the privacy invasion that it is, or STFU about Hotmail.
You can't pick and choose your philosophy based on a company's name!
What Microsoft is doing is what AOL has done for years -- providing data on the actual person such as age, gender, and location. AOL users have an object called the "q_context" that follows them around (like a cookie) that contains basic demographic info about you, and display objects can use info in the q_context to do things like pop up your local weather in a field, or (presumably) an ad targeted at your age and gender as well as your location.
This is nothing new, and it's really nothing all that bad, but it's still a lot more than Google does.
-- Old Man Kensey
It's interesting that we get so alarmed when we hear an ISP is doing what junk mailers and telemarketers have been doing for years. If they know where you live -- even approximately where you live -- there is a wealth of demographic data about you for sale. Ever thought about what happens when you answer all those questions on a warranty registration card? That data is sold to Experian or somebody, who in turn sells it to marketing organizations, and you find youself on a mailing list for pet owners or whatever.
...
We SHOULD be alarmed, but not specifically with the ISPs so much as with the companies who are collecting all this data and building up very detailed databases on your preferences and consumer habits.
And do you have one of those grocery store club cards?
I'm 4'6, blonde with red highlights. I love sleigh rides in the snow and cozy nights by the fire cuddling raw starfruit. My turn-ons are Makita power drills and rusted Ladas with Llamas towing them. I mean come on: This is Hotmail! How are they REALLY going to tell who we are?
We call that "OS" - "Original Spammers"...
/. that consists of Microsoft shills...
Microsoft "raises privacy concerns"...
Wow.
Who'd have thought a company that wants to totally control their customers' PCs would have "privacy concerns"?
Oh, wait, I guess they mean that Bill is concerned that he might not be able to invade your privacy in the pursuit of every last dime in your pocket...
I mean, if you don't know where that dime is, you can't get it, right?
When are people going to realize that Bill Gates is NOT a "geek", he's NOT a "genius", he's NOT a "techie" - he's a Harvard poker-playing, misogynist, greedy, rich, son of an asshole lawyer who's only interested in picking your pocket?
And everybody who works for him wants to be him and will say or do anything he says.
Including the half of
Read my DSL connection.
Fuck you.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
They can look thru my hotmail account all they like. It only ever gets used when I need to provide a valid email address to a website I'm visiting. This way, my home email doesn't get flooded with the porn ads/medications ads that seem to find their way to me after a visit amazon, hahaha.
For example, the system could force users to enter: Date of birth, ethnic affiliation, gender, sexual preference, social security number, driver license number, tax documents filed in the last 15 years, criminal records, photocopies of birth certificates, a list of current and past employers, amount of pay over a 10 year period, number of spouse and children, names, genders, social security numbers, and birth certificates of all family members, and the list goes on and on. It would take the average person a week to collect all of the information and to prepare all the documents for submission to Microsoft to activate a piece of software.
This would be good for the economy because companies will pop up everywhere that will file for you, similarly to the way that tax preparation companies exist all over the place.
But here's the best part: When the software is activated, Microsoft's systems would automatically verify all of the information with state and federal computer systems. Any incorrect information would be grounds for lawsuit and police action for fraud.
Assuming you're not busted for fraud, Microsoft would then sell complete identifying information to advertisers and businesses of all kinds, especially businesses that nobody's ever heard of, which are not reputable, or businesses which are specifically shady and/or illegal. These businesses could then use the information to specifically target advertisements for individual potential customers. They could also enhance their revenue by stealing the identity of those who do not purchase their products, thereby taking advantage of their government-granted right to guaranteed profits from business activities. Microsoft would collect a 99% tax on these profits, to recompense it for building such a vast and complex system.
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
Well, "detailed information about the demographics" dooesn't include your street address, your driver's license number, etc., etc.
In my book, you've got a pretty high standard for privacy. I'm surprised you actually use the internet.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
How else would they know to show me ads for Linux servers?
I feel a personal responsibility to put down as much erroneous and conflicting information as possible when filling out web forms. I'm pretty sure hotmail beleives that I am an 18 year old female virgin with an annual income of $0 whose name is Bill Gates and whose address is 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA... yeah, that info should be really useful to potential advertisers!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
As long as it does not bother you at all that you are providing statistical data that is being gathered for the explicit and expressed purpose of spamming you. If you have no problem with that, ROCK ON!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
"gathered this personal information by tracking users who have logged into its Hotmail e-mail program or other Microsoft Web sites in order to allow advertisers to target their ads to a specific audience"
hear that? that's the sound of thousands of spam relay and spambots cowering in fear that their personal info is being mined
Similarly, I've managed to register a few accounts stating that my date of birth was yesterday...
but not personally identifiable ... and location
Both of the above CAN INDEED be obtained by the advertisers by inserting graphics and HTML tags into the advertisements, which associate the client's IP address with the specific ad campaign.
IP addresses are considered personally identifiable information, and do indeed reveal your location.
Further, there is nothing in the Microsoft user agreement which would prevent their advertisers from employing their own cookie-based UID's (e.g. DoubleClick) to correlate your UID (and by extension your email address which these third parties likely already have) with the additional new datum that you happened to receive an email from MSN which targeted only people searching for mortgages.
The personal data can and will get out.
Hotmail method: Collect information on people, send databases to advertisers, so that they can target ads based on groups.
GMail method: Get advertisers to say to whom they want ads to show based on keywords. Automated process selects ads based on keywords. No databases involved.
the location is not hard find out, for example if you are the sysadmin for the server I am visiting right now, you can tell that I am from Tampa, FL just from my IP address. And I would assume it would be a pretty simple thing to run a program that can do a look up, and give a location prevelant ad within secs.
Calm down people, its a religion not an operating system.
There are so many gotchas with deriving location from IP, particularly for dialup users, that I don't think anyone relies on that by itself any more. Anyway, my point was that AOL knows your location because you tell the software and it in turn tells AOL's login service, which passes that information around the publishing system as you move through it.
-- Old Man Kensey
All these people filling out forms with bogus information - really now. My cat provided perfectly true information when she got her hotmail account, and when the Child Online Protection Act came in, the bums dropped her because she was under 13 years old. (Age: 3 Sex: F(neutered) Occupation: self-employed Income: She hasn't been back, and she dropped her Juno account when it started charging money.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks