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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.
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.
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
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.
What you don't know about google and accept for whatever faith reasons you have is scary.
Google has more data then we could ever dream up. What they do with it is often illegal for people to discuss because of agreements that are made between publishers & advertisers and 3rd parties they work with.
Even ads here are tracked. I would be suprised of the partner of sites here don't use the data to define demographics and details of the customer and are part of the "value add" of marketing here.
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.
>Notice they aren't releasing any information (like your name, etc.) that would explicitly identify the person to the advertisers.
There is some rather interesting research on this. Gender, age, and location is enough to identify most people, since, really, there are a limited number of people in each cartesian-type category. Note that this is different from aggregate data, which may be less personally identifiable, depending on how it's done.
The people at the data privacy lab have gone through and identified people in "non-personally identifiable" information released by several sources. Part of the problem is that you can put these sources of data together with high confidence and both narrow down individual people and gather a LOT of information about them. I'm sure they have some papers up if you're interested:
http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/
Lea
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
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
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
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?
You think your location is not considered information that can identify you? Granted, it depends on the resolution of the location information, but if they go under zip code (like zip+four) info, then this is indeed a violation of your privacy.
Human Subjects Research guidelines crealy state that zip code from participants in a study are muddy water. Anything below that (zip+4), actual address, etc. is considered private information and written consent from the participant is required for the use of the data. Notice that a permission is required to USE the data. Even if you somehow have the data, you need written permission to use them. Yes yes, EULAs probably grant permission, I know.
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
1) The Google TOS makes it clear that personally identifying information is not being shared. For the sake of argument, let's say that they're in compliance with it.
2) If you look at the ad buying process, there is no hint that any targeting exists beyond immediate keywords. If they use such targeting, they don't charge for it.
3) As long as #1 is in place, I don't particularly care whether they track aggregate searches per cookie -- I'm simply stating that they don't, to the best of my knowledge, serve ads based on search history. If I found that issue "scary", I'd look into it more deeply.
Out of curiosity, if you're so frightened over this issue, you're doing exactly what to protect your secrecy? Hitting Google through proxies?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
When a tv can report back to its master what channel I'm watching, when and for how long, my sole remaining tv will have a new home on the curbside.
There are additional prohibitions to the gathering of PII (personally identifiable information), including not gathering demographics on a ZIP code with fewer than a certain number of people.
Microsoft takes PII very seriously, and increasingly so. As an employee there, I had to take multiple courses on it, and the grunts took it very seriously. During the year I worked there (I quit to move into a different career) access to the MSN databases was tightened significantly.
I know y'all love to hate Microsoft, but seeing it from an inside perspective, I find much of the anti-Microsoft commentary in this thread uninformed.