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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."
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.
Why would I have any incentive to move from Google anyways? They bring nothing new to the table that I'm interested in.
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.
I didn't mean anything free, I meant when its free from a company whose motivation is profit. Its not always true, but there is almost always a profit or information motive.
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
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...
Doesn't matter if you read it when you signed up. The good ol' ever present We-reserve-the-right-to-change-our-policy -at-any-time (read "the We-reserve-the-right-to-screw-you clause") means you're left with the option to agree with the new terms or stop using the service.
I would say, its free from a company with such a bad record at treating their customers and or their decision making criteria only have profit, profit and 5) PROFIT, would make this news into OldNewsIsSoExciting.jpg
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
his is different than Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, or Opera how?
not a convicted monopoly
don't have 95% of the PC market
dont sell advertising or derive revenue from selling personal data to the highest bidder
dont pass on unique identifiers to their "partners"
dont attempt to avoid cookie security restrictions
but thats all minor stuff right ?
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 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.
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)
Google doesn't "Troll" through your email. You get ads that are selected based on words that are, at display time, found to be present in whatever email you're looking at. It's annonymous, and not at all based on personal information (and yes, those are two different things). Of course, MSFT wouldn't be the first to target ads with user profile information.
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
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?
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.