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Microsoft Calls for National Privacy Law

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the voice-of-reason dept.

tabdelgawad writes "Brian Krebs, who writes the Washington Post's Security Fix Blog notes that Microsoft has just asked Congress to enact a new federal privacy law to preempt the growing hodge-podge of state laws that regulate how companies can use personal information. Go Microsoft!?"

3 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Not necessarily good by tuxlove · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't assume Microsoft is trying to enact a law that *protects* your privacy. Perhaps they just want privacy laws to be predictable w/o too much concern for whether they actually protect or not.

    1. Re:Not necessarily good by InvalidError · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm fine with companies tracking my personal info if UK-style laws are adopted. IIRC, some of the more interesting clauses went something like this:
      1) companies shall not use nor retain information whose origins is not documented
      2) companies must make all the info they have on an individual including sources at the individual's request
      3) individuals may have companies delete records unless the company can justify keeping the records of terminated accounts

      This way, companies would at least have to think at least twice before collecting, using and distributing data.

  2. MS vs. Google by Zebra_X · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a preemptive strike against Google.

    MS isn't in the business of knowing who you are or what you do. They want you to buy their software, not collect your personal data. It shows in their software. Activation is completely anonymous as is error reporting and authenticity checks. This is not true however, for Google.

    They want to know who you are, what you do, what you click, buy, read and where you want to go. It's not going to stop there. Google wants information about every corner of the world. Thanks to a digital age, it is possible to gleen this information from our on-line habits.

    MS is making a strike at google's efforts by putting tighter restrictions on how they can use, and possibly distribute your information in the future.