Privacy advocates have greeted with scorn Microsoft Corp’s Comdex, Las Vegas call for other companies to adopt the policies of the Online Privacy Alliance (OPA). Critics point out that Microsoft’s own performance on privacy issues is far below industry and consumer expectations. Junkbusters president Jason Catlett observes that Microsoft collects a great deal of personal information by various means. Its WebTV subsidiary tracks the TV viewing habits of users. Another subsidiary, Hotmail, can see whenever one of its users follows a web link in email. With its acquisition of LinkExchange, Microsoft acquired millions of cookies, which also monitor web use. The company sometimes withholds information from users who do not accept these cookies. Microsoft should put its own house in order on privacy rather than waving about a discredited blueprint as a model for others, Catlett said. David Banisar, policy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, agreed with Catlett that the OPA’s guidelines are practically worthless. Under the guidelines, companies have nearly unlimited ability to disclose personal information to other companies without real consent, while not even allowing consumers access to their own information, Banisar said. Compounding these problems is the absence of any effective mechanism which could enforce corporate adherence to stated policies on privacy. Junkbusters and EPIC have called on Microsoft to disclose what information it is collecting from users of its internet services, and to obtain consent for that collection; to ensure that access to web sites is provided even to people who do not consent to collection; and to adhere to the fair information handling practices, such as informed consent, that were first outlined by the OECD in 1980.
