Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Using Personal Data to Target Ads
smooth wombat writes "Microsoft is combing personal data with your search habits to produce targeted ads. Users who use Microsoft's Hotmail email service, msn.com news service and other Microsoft-owned sites will see ads specific to their demographic and interests. From the article: 'Microsoft executives say the system works anonymously and they won't pass on people's names or addresses to advertisers. Executives say they want to foster confidence in users to build a long-term business, and one that gives an incentive to not misuse personal details.' "We're in the early days of behavioral targeting but it's an idea whose time has come,' says Simon Andrews, chief digital strategy officer for WPP Group's MindShare, a large buyer of ad time. 'There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.'"
This article is sure to be greeted positively by the Slashdot community!
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
If you hit the refresh button more than 5000/day, you get a lot of ads for Dice.
How did you know I didn't have a job? Scary stuff.
What a shame I don't use Microsoft's "Start" search. ;^D
Oh, and BTW - First Post?
Good thing Google doesn't do this with Gmail by scanning your info and producing targeted ads in a side bar ... oh ... wait!
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
I suppose this sort of thing doesn't really bother me. Frankly oftentimes I even opt-in to this sort of stuff. I like seeing things I am interested in (tech, games, etc) and I am not interested in seeing ads for things that I have zero interest in (donkey calliopes). At least this makes the ad-spam more interesting.
Laborare Est Orare
Isn't this exactly what people were afraid Doubleclick was going to do six or seven years ago when they bought that mass junk mail database? Public outcry was so huge then that Doubleclick had to very publically back off.
I wonder if the majority of people even care now? I do, and I suspect a fair number of Slashdotters do, but I don't think most people even notice these days. Or they've given up.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Nothing like a hosts file to fuck that up.
Of course, it's not like I expect privacy on the Internet, anyway.
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
I'm sure people will get up in arms, but this is what everyone does. They take all the info they have about you and they try to find out how to use that to most effectively market to you. Google does it, and so do most retailers. Retailers look at demographic info they have, purchase and return behaviors, and they often buy "data appends", or data about you collected by third parties, to augment their info.
They don't use this to hunt you down, spy on you in the bathroom, or brainwash you. What they do is figure out, statistically, based on this info, what you will buy, and try to sell that to you. It's how they make money more effeciently, and when done right, it's a service to you too. This is on the rise too, the best thing to do here is to embrace it and encourage companies to behave responsibly with this new-found knowledge.
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
This is not new and so far as I know not unique to Microsoft. The advertiser buys a "segment" of people and when a person in the segment views a Microsoft owned website they see the add that is "targeted" to them. A segment of people would be like Male 18-25 who likes cars. To be honest this is the same sort of thing that advertisers have purchased for years its just that Microsoft has the ability to better know if the viewer has those tastes. I'm not sure at all why this is some sort of new privacy concern for people. I also think most of the readers here understand that every other major advertising player online is trying to do the same thing. Those big players probably being Yahoo and Google of course.
Ways to avoid being "tracked" are to clear your cookies and don't sign in to sites. Of course then you will get to see the ads you could care less about instead of something that might possibly be useful to you.
As far as the claim that a person that buys a large portion of ads could start to identify people I don't at all buy it because Microsoft states, and I trust they follow the statement given the scrutiny that they recieve from all sides, that they don't pass your data on. Whats likely is that a person buys a segment for thier ads and at the end they get a report that says, "We were able to satisfy xx% of your request in xx days". They might also get info like "If you had booked your add on xxx.msn.com instead of zzz.msn.com we could have satisfied tt% more of your request and if you had booked both we could have satisfied the entire request."
One way that you could be "identified" is if you actually clicked through any of the ads in which case they could assign your IP or a cookie on your machine to a profile that has the segment information from the ad you clicked through on pre-populated.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Google == Good
MSFT == Bad
To refresh your memory: Don't want your messages to be readable by the 'wrong' people? Encrypt 'em real good, or don't use email. But if someone wants to provide a free service, then you get what you pay for. Be sure you read the terms of service. If you don't like it, use something else. Erase the cookie. Don't use the service. How do you know Yahoo! doesn't read all it's mail?
GOOGLE DOES THE EXACT SAME THING!
Their incoming mailserver reads your e-mail and gives you things to potentially see or do with it. It finds parcel tracking numbers, assuming they're correctly formatted, for USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL and maybe more, addresses to map -- and also links to products and services with keywords the same as phrases found in the e-mail you're reading.
There isn't anything wrong with this, either -- you're using their service, they're providing ads in a non-invasive manner to recoup some of the costs of their service being given away (or sold for dirt-cheap, as in a Hotmail Premium account.) If only all advertisers and "monitized web presences" would take a lesson from Google/MSN in their ad placement, I'd be a lot happier.
This really isn't anything new. A few years ago I worked on an advertising project that involved tracking your preferences which pulled information from your profile to tailor the ads that you received. It was smart advertising, because it led to higher click-through rates. We didn't pass your information on to other firms unless it was noted in our privacy contract - and even that was a completely separate process. For ads, it was a lot wiser to fill your sidebar and popups with age/sex/interest specific advertising than to show a 14 year old ads for geritol.
> There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.
And this is why I've given up my mobile phone, why my hard disks are encrypted, why I'm going to run my own SMTP/POP servers, and why I'm starting to think about not using Google any more.
If you don't reject it, you're passively accepting it.
"I see you're trying to search for Porn. Would you like to try Microsoft Porn for free?"
There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.
The only sites I look at are Slashdot and pron, so put that in your database and smoke it.
Well. Maybe you're right. I remember last time I clicked on a banner and bought something that was....
Wait. That was... Sorry. Can't remember.
Well let's say that was WAY before 2003.
Privacy is terrorism.
"Executives say they want to foster confidence in users to build a long-term business"
Shouldn't they start with building a secure operating system, rather than targeted ads?
Bark less. Wag more.
...primarily because I know that there will be ads online no matter WHAT I do...Adblock is a great firefox plugin, but still...ads are everywhere. If I am going to be forced to have them on the pages that I frequently view (like my hotmail account) I would MUCH rather that they be pertinant to my interests. I don't care about Botox, but an advert for a sale on an nvidia 8800...see, that I wouldn't mind
Living With a Nerd
Somehow I don't feel that my privacy is threatened by the collection of terrabytes of search strings. After all the web is free and search engines are not regulated public monopoly, but it makes me sad to think of the rationales behind these business strategies. Like these:
So when I read somewhere that Jerry Seinfeld was a Scientologist, I spent 15 minutes trying to see if that's true. Does my curiosity deserve to be rewarded by a plague of Scientology ads?
And when I buy a picture book for a 1-year-old, does Amazon really have to deluge me with lists of thousands of other picture books. I pray for an online bookstore with Google's design sensibilities.
If Microsoft manages to make a buck off of this maneuver, then so will Google and eventually, they will push all the oddball pages out of our sight and give us all the variety of the standard American shopping mall.
is stated here:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
Personal information and other data we collect
* Google collects personal information when you register for a Google service or otherwise voluntarily provide such information. We may combine personal information collected from you with information from other Google services or third parties to provide a better user experience, including customizing content for you.
* Google uses cookies and other technologies to enhance your online experience and to learn about how you use Google services in order to improve the quality of our services.
* Google's servers automatically record information when you visit our website or use some of our products, including the URL, IP address, browser type and language, and the date and time of your request.
* Read more in the full privacy policy.
Uses
* We may use personal information to provide the services you've requested, including services that display customized content and advertising.
* We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and services.
* We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Google.
* When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
* We may also share information with third parties in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal process, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services.
* Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information on a server outside your own country.
* Read more in the full privacy policy.
Your choices
* We offer you choices when we ask for personal information, whenever reasonably possible. You can find more information about your choices in the privacy notices or FAQs for specific services.
* You may decline to provide personal information to us and/or refuse cookies in your browser, although some of our features or services may not function properly as a result.
* We make good faith efforts to provide you access to your personal information upon request and to let you correct such data if it is inaccurate and delete it, when reasonably possible.
* Read more in the full privacy policy.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Everybody does this, or is trying too. News would be a simple,100 per cent effective way of defeating it's use.
. . . while logged in, be it with the Great Satan Microsoft or the All-Angelic Google, is a recipe for having a dossier built on yourself that Bob-knows-who will have access to in perpetuity. If you must use Hotmail, Gmail, MSN messenger, or what-have-you, at least use a separate browser instance running through TOR or JAP that's not logged in as you for your searching needs. Years later, when you need a security clearance, have to have a background investigation, or heaven forbid run for office, you'll thank yourself for not having left those behavioral breadcrumbs behind. Even if your searches are totally innocent, their being dredged up can't be of benefit to you, only detriment.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
This is _exactly_ what I want.
You know what pisses me off more than ads?
Ads that do not apply to me in any way whatsoever. I do not want spam about penis enlargement, about meeting women, or about hot stock tips.
If I only ever saw ads for:
- specials on go-fast parts for the particular year and model of each of my cars
- deals on ram from brands i trust for types of computers i already own
- used sun equipment on ebay
- lenses for Canon EOS systems
i'd probably click on a ton more ads, and buy more stuff. I wish there was a way to get MORE of my _preference_ data into advertising engines. I'd be happy to tell them the year and model fo all my cars, what types of electronic gadgets I own and like, and so on.
For instance - i am in the process of buying a new car. I was vaguely in the market for a "new(er)", and knew what brand and model i was interested in. What I didn't realize was some of the financial incentives going on currently that applied to me. It was just by matter of luck (word of mouth) that I heard about a program on new vehicles. I wasn't even considering a new vehicle until I happened to hear of this deal.
With all of the work people are going through trying to sell new cars, how is it that i had to work / get lucky to find out about some buying incentive program? It should be plainly obvious that I like German cars, where I live, what my credit / demographics are like - i would expect to see ads for different incentive, leasing, and financing deals from BMW, Audi, VW, MB, and Porsche.
Instead, i see "hit the monkey, win a prize"
Right now, the state of advertising is that you get spammed with shit you couldn't possibly care about. When i actually DO want to buy something, i have to go out and look for it. All of this money spent on ads, none of it actually making me buy anything.
This is an absolutely fascinating data mining, search, and technology problem. I think there is the opportunity for less intrusive and more relevant advertising to undo user resentment, and actually generate some worthwhile sales. It's better for advertisers and better for me. And hopefully advertisers will see the value-add of intelligent advertising done by Google, MS, etc, and the intrusive, non-targeted ads will fall by the wayside.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This headline could read:
Who in the world thought this was NEWS?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Google wasn't started by somebody with the initials B.G. either.
Virtually every advertiser in the world wants the ability to target their ads since it's more economical. Other search engines have been doing it for years. Companies like DoubleClick, etc. have been doing it for years. The advertising that's starting to appear on mobile phones (like Tuesday's article about Verizon Wireless) is all targeted as much as possible. The only way you can target ads is by using some sort of personal information, whether it's anonymous cookies, the physical location that your cellphone happens to be when an ad is delivered, the area code of your phone number, some demographic information you may have entered into a partners website, or a combination of all of the above.
I'm no fan of MS, but what else is new? If you don't like it don't use the product. MS's EULAs give MS the right to do whatever they want to with your data, and even if the EULA didn't it gives MS the right to change the EULA to say whatever they want it to say & you can agree or kiss your files goodbye. Isn't stuff like this the real reason why index.dat link files are around? To feed MS data to use? Again, if you don't like it, don't use the stuff. There are ways out.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
"I worked on an advertising project that involved tracking your preferences which pulled information from your profile .. We didn't pass your information on to other firms unless it was noted in our privacy contract"
I don't want people tracking my preferences, not for any nefarious purpose, it's just none of your business. Even so see what happened to this Fireman, er .. gender neutral/fighter when he bought something with his Store Card.
.. was arrested last August and charged with attempted arson .. Police investigators had discovered that his Club Card was used to buy fire starters of the same type used in the arson attempt.
.. fire starters. Wouldn't he know how to start a fire using common household items.
"Philip Scott Lyons
"All charges were dropped against him in January 2005 because another person stepped forward saying he set the fire and not Lyons. Lyons is now back at work after more than 5 months of being on administrative leave from his firefighter job"
Funny that, a firefighter having to buy firelighters, er
Re:Nothing to see here, move along..... (Score:1)
davecb5620@gmail.com
It's very trivial to discover who people are, especially if you're combing and data mining their email for details to build reports to give to advertisers. Not only that, it's trivially simpler to correlate who people are with email and their IP addresses. So much private information passes through the email system, I would not be surprised if their are entire databases decribing everything about a person, their interests and their life that they have revealed through public email system to private friends, lovers and colleagues over the internet.
You cannot have privacy in a modern economy everyone leaves breadcrumbs everywhere by interacting with businesses.
I have Firefox set to delete cookies when I close the browser (except for a few sites I've whitelisted) and run the Adblock Plus extension. No ads. Targeted or not.
when They wanted my credit card number to verify my identity.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Why, of course they won't pass *my* info onto advertisers. All they'll have to go on is an IP and maybe a name - it's not like I use my real address when applying for any free online services. I only use a real address and/or phone # if I actually want the people in question to contact me like if I'm buying a product online and want it to be shipped to me.
-b.
I have yet to see any web ads that could in any manner be called "targeted" at me based on my interests, from any source. It's always the usual trash ads for stuff nobody with an IQ greater than their shoe size would want.
I think the issue here is that there's always been a sort of implicit firewall where the stuff you do while logged in (even if targetted by ads whilst looking at your email) remains seperate from the ad tracking done on the open internet. Now what they're doing is using the data from your email to target ads to your machine when you're looking at, say, Slashdot (if Slashdot were running ads from the MSN network). Does anyone think I've misunderstood that. I think that's right...
I'm a bit disappointed.
Are people really so egotistical as to think that Microsoft or any corporation cares about them and their habits individually?
We're all just statistics. They care if 70% of a given demographic searches for 'PS2' over 'Xbox'. They don't care that you personally search for 'hot naked redheads'.
Personally, if I'm going to see ads, I'd rather see ones that are more likely to match my interests. I know, ads are evil and all that, and I usually just tune them out anyway, but if one actually does help me discover a product that I end up liking, well hell, what's the harm?
I'm surprised so many people are complaining about ads in the days of adblock and adblock plus. I hardly ever see ads.
Ad's aren't annoying in themselves, ad's you don't care about are annoying.
If you happen to see an ad that tells you about something you're interested in, that's a good thing for you and for the marketer and things like this just make that more likely.
Actually, I think they did just that!
If slashdotters are up in arms about a persistent database like this, then they are woefully in the dark about what happens offline. pretty much every credit or debit card transaction you make on every major credit card is collected, stored, and aggregated by companies like Acxiom. The info is then sold a wide variety of companies that want your business. That database has more info about people then most government databases.
"We're in the early days of behavioral targeting but it's an idea whose time has come,' says Simon Andrews"
So, they think of me as a "target." And they're surprised that I don't like this?
"1a. An object, such as a padded disk with a marked surface, that is shot at to test accuracy in rifle or archery practice. b. Something aimed or fired at. 2. An object of criticism or attack. 3. One to be influenced or changed by an action or event. 4. A desired goal. 5. A railroad signal that indicates the position of a switch by its color, position, and shape. 6. The sliding sight on a surveyor's leveling rod. 7. A small round shield. 8a. A structure in a television camera tube with a storage surface that is scanned by an electron beam to generate a signal output current similar to the charge-density pattern stored on the surface. b. A usually metal part in an x-ray tube on which a beam of electrons is focused and from which x-rays are emitted."
I, for one, think it is legitimate to get angry at those who regard me, even metaphorically, as something to be shot at, fired at, attacked, influenced, or changed. I don't even like being a "desired goal."
Those who "target" me should not be surprised at being a target for my anger.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Google does the same thing, but no one takes any notice
Google gave me a targeted ad that seemed to be based on text that was in an IMAGE (jpeg) I had attached to the email. In other words, the text of the email did not come anywhere CLOSE to the subject of the targeted ads, only the text that was inside the image pertained. The two (email text, image text) were not related in any way.
Spooky.
So why am I getting ads for penile enlargement and xbox 360's?
I don't need either.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You're kidding; the largest marketting research firm using the computers we get by default, to target ads in our direction? Das'Crazy-Talk.
These are the kinda things you learn **early***on*** from supporting computers since before Microsoft sold their first offering on the IBM PC. Pay attention, folks.
Run Linux. Shiny!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Last October, he was searching Yahoo for a website of a conference that was held in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Less than an hour later he receives an email from Expedia, which he used before to book travel (and probably checked off or left checked, a box that says "send me spam").
The email from Expedia says:
So, does Yahoo sell the info in real time to rival Microsoft, rather than their own Yahoo Travel? Or what?
It can't be a coincidence for sure.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Ads? What ads?
No ads to see here, please move along...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If you're going to have to view ads (and I personally hate 'em, I've got Firefox with Adblock on every machine I use regularly) why not at least make them ads relevant to my interests?
There's no privacy problem here that I can see. You really think you've got ANY privacy at all when you're keeping your mail on someone else's server and running your search requests through someone else's search engine? HA! Get a clue! You HAVE no privacy here!
Should we go to http://www.msn.com/ and search for "replace windows with linux" or similar. Can we slashdot MS?
Me: Have you noticed whether the ads that appear on HotMail are targeted to your demographic?
Her: Oh, they don't register with me. I don't even notice them.
Well, there you go. True story. Sorry, M$.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Certainly this is too unlikely to be a coincidence, but that doesn't guarantee Yahoo sold the info. Have you considered spyware? I never use Yahoo search (and only occasionally Live search) and I don't know Yahoo's privacy policy, but them selling personally associated search info to a company like Expedia (unless there's some partnership between then that I don't know aout?) seems unlikely. On the other hand, this is exactly the sort of behavior one might see if one's machine has spyware. I'm not saying it would be difficult for Yahoo to provide this info to third parties (especailly if your relative uses Yahoo email) but it's fairly unlikely. I've never heard of anything like that from MS or Google either (and only once about Yahoo) so I'm guessing we don't know the whole story.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Of course, but it is not the intended consequences that you need to worry about.
In the US, this kind of consumer preference data is being used for intelligence purposes as well. It comes down to the question of who owns the records. In the US it's not you. So, the FBI could simply ask MS (or whoever) for the data, and they could, if they wished, give it to them. In practice, this kind of information is simply being sold, and law enforcement is creating "fusion" centers in which data from different sources are brought together.
In Europe, which has a general data pricacy directive, any organization collecting data you supply needs your informed consent before using for another purpose, including selling or transferring it. It is possible for law enforcement to get access to that data, but it is more difficult than buying it on the open market, which means they are more likely to think about it's value and how to use it before going through the trouble. Consumer preference data is not very suitable for intelligence use, particularly as the primary source of information used for screening.
Here in the US, the Supreme Court has said that being held under suspicion is not an unlawful deprivation of liberty. This means you have no recognized Constitutional protection from being capriciously subjected to surveillance, extra searches, and cumbersome administrative procedures. If the problem is out there in the ocean of commercially available data, there is no one agency or organization that can fix it. It will come back to haunt you over and over again.
As one legal scholar put it, your only recourse in the case of unfounded suspicion based on data mining is to hope it dies a natural death.
This is why you hear so many stories about people who are put on terrorist watch or no fly lists for no apparent reason, and can't do anything about it.
In 1973, the Department of Health Education and Welfare released a report on data pricacy entitled "Records, Comptuers and the Rights of Citizens." While not as comprehensive as the OECD privacy guidelines release seven years later, the report recommends a number of robust safeguards for systems that contain personally identifiable information. The intent was that these guidelines be enacted into law. In the end, they were only enacted for Federal systems, under the "Privacy Act".
The difference between the EU and US stance on data privacy is this: in the EU, data privacy is treated as a right, which is proteted by omnibus legislation. In the US, it is treated as class of problems to which Congress reacts on a case by case basis (e.g. credit reports, cable subscriber records, federal records). The problem with this approach is that it doesn't work. The Privacy Act no longer works because the government simply pays private enterprise to do things it is forbidden to do.
It's important not to judge something like this solely by its intended consequences. It's always the unintended consequences that we must bear most in mind. A system like this is a reminder that as an American, your data privacy rights have no legal protection. That lack of protection can create problems for you, although the people violating your rights usually have only good intentions. If you are unluckly enough to have a problem, that problem won't go away because you have no usable legal protection. Normally, US law is relatively strong when it comes to restricting capricious government intervention in your life. But for data privacy problems you have no due process rights of protection from government interference.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.