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New Messenger Has Same Old, Gaping Privacy Holes

Posted by kdawson on from the not-that-kind-of-friends dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft released the beta of the new 'Wave 4' Windows Live Essentials last week. The new beta of Windows Live Messenger 2011, while plugging some privacy holes and shoring up the user interface, fails to tackle the one biggest privacy-buster of all. Say you use Messenger to IM your wife. You also use Messenger to IM your old girlfriend. The next time your wife logs on to her Hotmail account — not Messenger, Hotmail — she will see that you and your old girlfriend 'are now friends.' It all happens without your knowledge or permission, and it happens even if you tell Messenger you want your personal information to be 'Private.'"

3 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Err what? by minsk · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would LOVE for facebook to have a privacy option "Disable the ability to tag me in any photo"

    Like the privacy setting entitled "Photos and videos I'm tagged in", which can be customized to Only Me or blocked from specific people?

    I can't swear that it works properly. So test with someone other than your mistress first :)

  2. Privacy Setting Windows Live by ShawnDoc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can't you turn this off in the Windows Live privacy settings (not the Live Messenger privacy settings)?

  3. Re:This is so irrelevent it's not even funny. by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microsoft Messenger? Oh you mean that thing i don't have installed on this computer? The thing i specifically removed from the silent install disc i made?

    Relevancy is best seen from the view outside the basement.

    Messenger has 330 million users and is available in 50 languages. Windows Live Messenger