Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Planning the Future of Privacy at Microsoft

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the genuine-disadvantage dept.

Tony writes "Peter Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist, found himself in the front line in the wake of the software giant's recent antipiracy controversy. He talks about his role at the company, and what's in store for the future." From the interview: "Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist, has been very involved with the issue and readily admits that the software maker dropped the ball on WGA Notifications. The flap puts him on the front line, rather than his usual role behind the scenes. For the most part, Cullen, who joined Microsoft three years ago from the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, is happy with his role at the software giant. He works on things such as guidelines for developers and privacy policies."

6 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft seems to do this alot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    and by "this" I mean rewarding people who help them kill competitors.

    Remember when SGI was a Unix company and a leader in 64-bit computing with their high end MIPS chips and then they switched to become a Wintel reseller and drop their chips and started selling Windows and practically stopped devloping their Unix? Well, if you look at who made that decision (Belluzzo), Microsoft hired the guy and made him a company president

    Remember when HP was a Unix company and a leader in 64-bit computing with their high end PA-Risk chips and then they switched to become a Wintel reseller and drop their chips and started selling Windows and practically stopped devloping their Unix? Well Microsoft hired that guy and made him a company President too (oh yeah, it was the same guy).

    This is what I expected to happen long ago, and posted on Groklaw (as an AC, of course) -- I bet Darl and friends get executive positions at Microsoft or a Microsoft backed company as rewards for their service too.

  2. Planning.. by doubtless · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought I had read Planning the future of piracy at Microsoft..

    --
    geek page at KY speaks
  3. new policy: "don't get caught so easily" by EllynGeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    They have the finest coders in the world, surely they can spy on users and invade their systems without being caught so easily. Why, they look like amateurs when Zone Alarm finks them off on the first try.

    --

    we will end no whine before its time

  4. Off topic, but... by sillysnipes · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Windows Error Reporting, for example, has privacy built into it. When there is a problem with the system we want to know about that, because it is perhaps the only way that we can fix it. But we also understand that you need to have the choice about whether the information is sent. So, before it gets sent, you have to affirmatively say "please send".

    ...I hate that "Send/Don't Send" screen with a passion. Why not just tell us the error message instead so we can try and fix it?

    1. Re:Off topic, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... because you can't fix it. It's closed source, remember?

    2. Re:Off topic, but... by Phraghg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because getting a detailed error report for most users is scarier than the fact that an error occured at all. Hence the spinning beachball of doom on Mac OSX :).