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Microsoft Says IE8 Phoning Home Is "Pretty Innocuous"
CWmike writes "Microsoft has defended the IE8 tool that suggests sites based on URLs typed into its address bar, saying that the browser 'phones home' only a limited amount of information to Microsoft and that the company discards all user IP addresses almost immediately. Company managers also contrasted IE8 Beta 2's 'Suggested Sites' feature with the 'Suggest' feature used by Google Chrome, saying that Microsoft's requires the user's explicit permission before it's used. They did acknowledge a bug that prevents the request from reappearing when users reinstall the browser. Cyra Richardson, a Microsoft principal program manager on the IE team, said: 'Suggested Sites is connected to the browser's history, and it's not looking at each of the keystrokes. IE only captures the URL as it is navigated [to], when that URL goes into your history.' Nor does Suggested Sites log and transmit cookies to Microsoft's servers, as does Google Suggest, Richardson said. 'The data we log is actually pretty innocuous.'"
how does it feel to be a dull stupid bitch?
Let me get this straight - so Chrome logs every keystroke? I'm reading that Google is hardly 'anonymizing' our data.
What's to stop a gov't subpoena from getting my exact letter-for-letter browsing history over the next 9-18 months?
I don't understand how this works.
The problem is this: How many times have we caught MSFT lying now? Hell I lost count ages ago. Don't forget,this is the same company that said "There is nothing wrong with the Xbox 360" HA HA. So MSFT expecting anyone to take them at their word considering how worthless that word has been in the past seems a little crazy to me. How does the old saying go? Fool me once,shame on you. Fool me twice,shame on me. Microsoft is got a long way to go to regain my trust,and just cause they say one thing doesn't mean they ain't doing something else. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Can you cite me any truly egregious privacy violations commited by Microsoft,
Activation. The entire system is based on "truly egregious privacy violations". You paid for the OS (or a perpetual license or whatever) but the software "phones home" when you make certain alterations to your PC. If you make too many, you have to call MS and ask them if you can please carry on using the product you paid for.
It should be none of their damn business what you do once you've paid the money.
That's (one of the reasons) why I use Linux; it may have various bugs/issues in other areas, but I know it's *never* going to artificially lock me out or degrade its function or start popping up "illegal copy" nag windows, because it doesn't even contain the concept of licensing/activation etc. in its code.
To the person who modded me troll,you want links? Here you go. MSFT lied to the Justice Dept,MSFT lied to get a better deal on the DVR patents ,MSFT lied with a fake ad trying to fight the "Mac VS PC" ads,MSFT lied about Xbox 360 features,hell I could do this all day long. Hell just typing "Microsoft lied" into Yahoo brings up over 3 MILLION hits!
So answer me this if I am a supposed troll: Given the fact that we are talking about a company that has a proven history of lying and only fessing up when actually caught in a lie,why should we take their word now? I mean if Diebold says "Sure the voting boxes are safe,trust us they are hack proof!" would you believe them without proof? Considering how much information can be gleaned from the average persons searches and how much money that could potentially be worth to data miners,give me one good reason why now we can trust Microsoft simply because they say it is so? After being lied to by MSFT so much in the past I don't think it too much to ask to have an independent source at least look at what is going on there with that data,do you? But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.