Microsof

As Microsoft Shifts Its Privacy Rules, an Uproar Is Absent
Microsoft instituted a policy on Friday that gives the company broad leeway over how it gathers and uses personal information from consumers of its free, Web-based products like e-mail, search and instant messaging.
Almost no one noticed, however, even though Microsoft’s policy changes are much the same as those that Google made to itsprivacy rules this year.
Google’s expanded powers drew scathing criticism from privacy advocates, probing inquiries from regulators and broadside attacks from rivals. Those included Microsoft, which bought full-page newspaper ads telling Google users that Google did not care about their privacy, an accusation it quickly denied.
The difference in the two events illustrates the confusionsurrounding Internet consumer privacy. No single authority oversees the collection of personal information from Web users by Internet companies. Though most companies have written privacy policies, they are often stated in such broad, ambiguous language that they seem to allow virtually any use of customers’ personal information.
Web companies like Microsoft and Google have been moving aggressively toexpand their abilities to gather and sort information about individuals’ habits and interests — even as Congress, federal regulators and the Obama administration have been seeking ways to protect Internet users against unwanted privacy incursions.
Microsoft’s policy, which it calls its Services Agreement, allows it to analyze customer content from one its free products and use it to improve anotherservice — for example, taking information from messages a consumer sends on Windows Live Messenger and using it to improve messaging services on Xbox. Previously, that kind of sharing of information between products would not have been allowed under Microsoft policies, which limited the use of data collected under one of its products to that product alone.
Microsoft has promised, however, that itwill not use the personal information and content it collects to sell targeted advertising. It will not, for example, scan a consumer’s e-mails to generate ads that might interest the user. Google does that, and expanding its ability to draw on that content was part of the reason Google changed its privacy policy this year.
But the new Microsoft policy does allow for such targeted advertising.Microsoft promised not to do so in blog posts and e-mails informing its customers about the change, but not in the formal policy. That has some privacy advocates nervous.
“What Microsoft is doing is no different from what Google did,” said John M. Simpson, who monitors privacy policy for Consumer Watchdog, a California nonprofit group. “It allows the combination of data across services in ways auser wouldn’t reasonably expect. Microsoft wants to be able to compile massive digital dossiers about users of its services and monetize them.”
Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman, says the company’s plans are benign. He differentiates between the Services Agreement, also known as the terms of use, that was changed on Friday and the company’s Privacy Policy, which was last updated in April.
“Overthe years, we have consistently informed users that we may use their content to improve the services they receive,” Mr. Evans said in a written statement. “For instance, we analyze content to improve our spam and malware filters in order to keep customers safe. We also do it to develop new product features such as e-mail categorization to organize similar items like shipping receipts in a commonfolder, or to automatically add calendar invitations.
“However,” he added, “one thing we don’t do is use the content of our customers’ private communications and documents to create targeted advertising. If that ever changes, we’ll be the first to let our customers know.”
Microsoft’s new services agreement affects only its free, Web-based products, not the software programs that individuals and...