Microsoft Opts-In Hotmail Users

medeii writes "East Side Journal reports that without telling anyone, Microsoft has suddenly changed the privacy preferences for all Hotmail users. They're now sharing your name and other personal information with third parties, even if you said you didn't want that when you signed up. (If you're a user, login, go to Options > Personal Profile, and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.)" The same reporter has written a follow-up article today.

You think that's bad?

I'll do you one better.

Mozilla users can't access Options->Personal Profile to opt out.

Re:You think that's bad?

Neither can Opera users who identify themselves as either Opera or Mozilla. Switch the identifier to IE 5.0, however, and the personal profile page suddenly works perfectly. Way to go, MS.

Re:You think that's bad?

Ok. That was fun!

I got all panicky and changed my preferences. Then I figured, if they're (obviously) not going to protect my privacy, why give away personal information?

So, thinking my birth-year information matters (it does to me) I put a bogus "1999" in the appropriate place. What resulted was an endless loop of the silly system asking "Is your parent there with you? [Yes] [No]" in a Microsoft .NET "Kids" page!

When I clicked "Yes", it asked for Passport login info. (I only have one Passport account). When I clicked "No" it asked for my name and my parents e-mail address. In other words, I'm now LOCKED out of an account I've had for four years!

Now what e-mail address am I going to use to register with at spam-bombers, like 1-800-FLOWERS.com or ILLUMINATIONS.com or IMSI.com? Or what about when bots no longer find my hotmail.com address at InterNIC? Will I miss all that spam?

(Yes, I got blocked the first attempt, too, using Konqueror; Switched to NS 4.78 :-(

Re:You think that's bad?

It doesn't matter. All they had to do is sell it once to some unscrupulous company in the minutes when the box was unchecked, and the dammage is done. There's no web form that can undo it. The effectively have licence to the data in your account during that brief period. Ingenious of them. Glad I don't have an account there.

Re:You think that's bad?

That's right. Fake name, fake birthday, ZIP code 90210. But I did an oopsie when I went in to change my profile. Just to be funny, I thought I give them an even faker birthday than the fake one I put in, but I locked myself out of my account because now it thinks I'm 3 years old and I need my parent's permission to confirm my account. Oh well, guess I'll have to make another fake hotmail account with an adult age to give my first account his parent's permission.

Re:You think that's bad?

Microsoft® .NET Passport no longer supports the Web browser version you are using. Please upgrade to a current Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later, or Netscape Navigator version 4.08 or later.

Netscape navigator 4.08 or later is supported, but not my Mozilla 0.99? a step backward? or basically just not going to be friendly towards open source?

this sucks.

Re:You think that's bad?

Don't you read anything? Everyone knows that if they support Mozilla, they will have to open source Excel. It's those damned viral licenses.

Re:You think that's bad?

People smart enough to use mozilla should be smart enough to not trust their personal info to microsoft either.

Tried a few with Opera

Identify as Opera: dont work
Identify as Mozilla 5.0: dont work
Identify as Mozilla 4.76: Works
Identify as Mozilla 3.0: dont work
Identify as MSIE 5.0: Works(duh!)

Yet, in Opera, all the pages are rendered the same way, and all pages in hotmail work fine in Opera assuming you identify it as a 'preferred browser'. So, its not a functionality issue, just a "use our damn browser or else" issue. A DDoS attack from MSN to non-IE users? hehe

Re:You think that's bad?

I'll do you even one more better.

I just turned those options off, then signed out. I logged back in to see if they had taken effect and found that -every- time you go into options, those boxes are automatically checked.

So beware, any time you change/view your options you need to uncheck the boxes again...

Re:and here's from mozilla

I'm surprised you haven't realized this by now, but you're a Feature, not a Bugg.

Best sign in properly next time, hmm?

Surprise!

And this is surprising, how?

I mean, come on, this is Micro$oft we are talking about here... marketing, marketing, marketing!

Besides, Yahoo led the way, did they not? I would not be surprised to find out that Microsoft watched that whole Yahoo business very closely, and saw the complete lack of any outcry as a "green light" to go forward with this.

Trust. . . .

I don't care how good MS's software gets;

they can spend all of the money that they want making their software better and better (hey, Win2K does indeed rock. Heh. :) ) but fact is;

keep pissing people off and they will lose customers faster then 'software security audits' up to hell will gain them customers.

(oh yah, and not making each OS more and more bleeping 'beautified' would be nice as well, I swear, if I wanted a pretty-boy interface I would've bought a mac!)

::hopes somebody hurries up and forces McNeel software to port Rhino3d to other x86 platforms. Is willing to provide crowbar to volenteer 'encourages' if necessary::

Funny,

Considering the amount of spam I get at my Hotmail accounts, I'm surprised that they haven't been doing this all along.

Re:Alternatives?

my mac.com email is free, web-based, devoid of banners, and apple probably wouldn't pull this kinda crap.

ok maybe they would, but you'd probably only getty pretty spam from them.

Privacy Subscription?

So now you don't even have to tell every company and their brothers company that you do business with that you want your privacy, but you have to do it monthly???

Shouldn't privacy be a default thing to respect? Why should I have to constantly defend it?

Can I charge for infringment of my privacy? (like charging for spam?)

"To request your privacy options, tell us your life history. We want to make sure it's you, before we consider granting you temporary privacy."

If you do not allow us to use up bandwidth sending you stuff you do not want then you should pay us for lost revenues.

Re:Good strategy.

You fail to see the genius of this plan.

For months they have been trying to get people to sign up with their Premium Email package which expands the mailbox to 10Mb and lasts forever (or something like that). People have not been signing up. It's simply too easy to create a brand new address when one fills up, so Microsoft then has to deal with 2 accounts (and so on and so on and so on) for each customer who has used up their allotted space.

Enter spam. If Microsoft can make it intolerable for ordinary users (non-Premier club members) to use Hotmail because the speed in which the account fills with spam is simply too fast, then they will push away those users who are not interested in paying for the service. Or they will attract the payers by making it intolerable to use the service otherwise.

Bottom line: They reduce the total traffic on their site by sloughing off the leeches (including yours truly), and increase revenue at the same time.

The idea is brilliant.

New TOS?

I went to disable that option and found out my account had been disabled since I didn't log in in 30 days. I click the "reactivate link" thinking I should reactivate and then uncheck that option, but upon reactivating I had to accept the terms of service again. You think you've seen some long ones before? Basically they're saying by accepting one, I'm accepting them all. Is it legal to agree to one document that links to terms in another document?

The following is quoted from their TOS:

The MSN Web Sites are offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices contained herein. Your use of the MSN Web Sites constitutes your agreement to all such terms, conditions, and notices. Your use of a particular MSN Web Site included within the MSN Web Sites may also be subject to additional terms outlined elsewhere in this agreement (the "Additional Terms"). To go directly to any of the Additional Terms, click on the link below:

Carpoint

GamingZone

MSN Health

MSN Money

HomeAdvisor

MSN Hotmail

Encarta Online

MSN Mobile

MSN Music

MSN Shopping (eShop)

MSNBC

Auctions

MSN Photos

Additionally, the MSN Web Sites may themselves contain additional terms, codes of conduct or guidelines that govern use of those sites, including without limitation, particular features or offers (for example, sweepstakes or chat areas).

People should get vanity email addresses

This is probably the 100th time there's been mention of trouble with the free webmail systems like Yahoo and Hotmail that people have had.

It really is worth the money to own a domain and get an email address that no one can fsck with.

Benefits:
Not based on your ISP
No privacy issues
Multiple email accounts for different purposes
Can utilize forwarding to webmail

Oh, just an oversight..

As with most issues of this nature..
If the story hits big, and big media starts questioning the practice, MS will claim that it was a programing error, it was changed but they actually have no plans to really share that data, or it was strictly an "accident" in preparing for some upcoming vapor feature they planned on adding or testing. Sorry..

If it doesnt hit big the plan will stay put and 99.9% of the users will never know.
Another reason I always use completely bogus information for these registration things.

Re:Passport profile

Kinda reminds me of a MS developer mailing list I accidently got subscribed to. I tried to unsubscribe

Easy solution: set up an out of office message for that list. Every message from the list gets quoted and sent back to the list with some tag like 'Hey look! I don't know how to use my mail client!'. You'll be unsubscribed within the day.

Microsoft-Slashdot

Phew...looks to me like yet another Microsoft-Slashdot contract ("conspiracy") to bring loads of traffic to Hotmail site...

P.S. The options with "Share my other registration information" has this text:
"This information, which is stored in your Microsoft® .NET Passport and required for registration at many Web sites, includes:

Birth Date
Country/Region
State/Territory
Gender
Acc essibility
Time Zone
Occupation"

This means that whatever fake information I put in Hotmail would be used for all other sites? No Way!

Always assume the worst

It's a safe bet that no matter what the vendor says, they will pimp out whatever they can for money. They will lie and cheat and then lie and cheat about that.

Either don't give them any true or useful information or don't give them any information at all. Leave footprints like misspelling your own name in a very unique way. Track it and complain complain complain when you find them out. cc a copy of your complaint to your state attorney general's office.

Not true for me

I just checked my hotmail options and those three boxes were NOT checked. So I have no idea what the hell the article writer is talking about or what's different between his case and mine.

Of course, this post will probably get buried under the avalanche of people who want to believe the article.

The Actual text

You can speed registration and get personalized services at participating sites by sharing your .NET Passport information with them when you sign in.

Choose how much of your .NET Passport information Microsoft can share with other companies' .NET Passport sites at sign-in:

_ Share my e-mail address.
_ Share my first and last names.
_ Share my other registration information.

Tell me more about .NET Passport, privacy, and security.

FWIW, when I checked my user profile, all three of the options were unchecked.

oh this is beautiful

"Microsoft® .NET Passport was temporarily unable to complete your request. Please try again "

Well i guess their servers are too busy selling my information right now.

I should try later.

Other things I love about hotmail

• Account sizes started at 10 MB. Hotmail recently reduced them to 2 MB.
• Hotmail constantly sends me reminders that I can get my 10MB of storage back by paying them a monthly fee. Great...
• Those same reminders generally come as part of a message that says, in effect, "Your account is almost full. We'll send you another message to add to the total so you fill up even faster. By doing this, we can clearly demonstrate why you need a larger account. Pay us now.
• I can get 500 messages from a single address with an identical subject and message body. Fun, now my account fills up even faster. (I sent suggestions on how to prevent this. The information was supposedly passed along to the dev team. Who knows...)
• I can sign up for a new account and within hours, I'm receiving spam. Dang, now that's some added value, not to mention adding to the need for more storage.
• Obvious bulk mail goes into my junk folder. Nice, except that my junk folder contributes to my total space used and isn't purged automagically if more space is needed. There isn't even an option to do this. (Sigh, I need more space again. Maybe they'll send me another advert so I can sign up..)
• And more and more of my favorite things about hotmail. Isn't it just nifty?

arg!!!!

Riddle me this... (3 of 4 accounts affected)

OK, I've got four HotMail accounts. For the first three, the options had been changed and I reset them to opt-out. When I got to the fourth account, which I set up about three weeks ago and have NEVER sent a message from, my options indicated that none of my info was to be public. However, there were 171 SPAMs waiting for me, starting just a few hours after the "Welcome to HotMail" message. Apparently, they released my new e-mail address to the wild the instant it was created, making any decision of mine to opt-out a moot point. Once it's out there, you're screwed.

!There is another explaination!

So much for Microsoft and its smarts. Either the policy is wrong or Microsoft was wrong to pre-check the boxes to share information -- both cannot be right.

As a database programmer I know it's totally possible for checkboxes to display information contrary to what the real database has stored. Imagine that a given field is supposed to contain the values 0 or 1. 0 means no and 1 means yes. It's quite possible for a NULL value on a new field to be rendered as yes, even though nothing has been decided yet. If X == 0 then no else yes. There.

DoS: Everyone sign up for a dozen hotmail accounts

Everyone sign up for a dozen hotmail accounts and effectively posion they're market data. If companies find out 50% of the email addresses on hotmail.com are false then they'll pay MS less money to host _more_ addresses.

I hate to be the one to call for this, however it's just as legal as what they're doing. It's no the moral thing to do but it is legal. It's time to do something all you little /. trolls.

Use Hotmail as a Spam Trap

I have on old hotmail account that gets 100+ pieces of spam a day, and I no longer recieve any personal email to that account. What I've done, is I use Gotmail [freshmeat.net] to download all the email, then pipe it to Razor [sourceforge.net]. I do this every day from a cron job. If every slashdot user set up a hotmail account with a phony name, and ALLOWED the spam to come by not changing thier preferences, this would be a pretty good way to keep Razor, or whatever other spam reporting service you are using current.

I say bring em' on! I'm happy to waste MS's bandwith, and glad to help keep the spam databases current, so those of us running Spamassassin [spamassassin.org] can keep our real email accounts clean.

Why use Hotmail anyway?

Why are people still using Hotmail?

It's got to be the worst free email service on the Net when it comes to reliability, security, spam and superfluous fluff associated with your mail.

When I discovered how much simpler and cleaner YahooMail was I ditched my HotMail account and never regretted it for a moment.

Okay, Yahoo may still change your marketing preferences, but at least they had the decency to let you know about it and give you a chance to reverse the changes before adding you to a long list of lists.

However, the best thing of all about YahooMail is that I get an incredibly small amount of spam arriving in my yahoomail email box.

Either their spam filtering is far more effective, or spammers consider Hotmail user to be dumber (and therefore more likely to believe that you can earn $50,000 a month stuffing envelopes).

I also get a 6MB mailbox for free (perhaps because I was an early adopter -- I don't think they're quite as generous for new signups) and the service seems very reliable.

With my Javascript turned off I don't even see the pop-up ads that can be such a PITA when browsing Yahoo's properties.

Yahoo may be far from perfect but it's a whole lot better than Hotmail that's an absolute undeniable fact.

Shouldn't that be....

(If you're a user, login, go to Options > Personal Profile, and un-check the boxes at the bottom of that page.)

Shouldn't that read something like...

"If you're a user, then the preference to change is your email provider."

-Restil

in which I attempt to delete my hotmail account...

I obfuscated the names because I have nothing against the people who responded (or didn't respond, depending on your point of view) to my request. Their replies were slightly mechanistic, and it is clear (to me, yvmv) that Microsoft has no intention of giving up the information I provided to open my hotmail account. But I planned for this day, so any junk mail Microsoft may have signed "me" up for, using the name and address I generously provided, is being forwarded to the dead letters office in Leesville, Louisiana. Yeeha.

This latest move comes as no surprise, really. I can't imagine Redmond respects my privacy any more than Yahoo!, Egghead, or any one of a dozen other defunct dot coms...

===== BEGIN =====

Excellent. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. I intend to close my account presently. I will attempt to log in to hotmail in 100 days. If that attempt succeeds, I will contact you then.

From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
To:
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:23:03 -0800

Hello [e-mail],
Thank you for writing to Microsoft .NET Passport.
In response to your inquiry, I would just like to reiterate that your Hotmail account is an automatic Passport account as well. Therefore, if you close your Hotmail account, your Passport account will also be cancelled.
I hope I was able to help you.
Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
Pi.
Microsoft .NET Passport Customer Support Representative

--- Original Message ---
From: [e-mail]
To: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
Sent: Tue Feb 26 19:40:25 PST 2002
Subject: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account

Finally, someone actually *read* my question. After receiving the exact same response twice in a row I was becoming concerned that there was no human being on the other end of the computer at all, but a machine, which was parsing the question and appending the appropriate "solution". To rephrase your reply: if I close my hotmail account, and DO NOT USE MY PASSPORT FOR 90 DAYS, all information provided to or collected by Microsoft will be automatically deleted, including any information provided to marketers, advertisers, or any of Microsoft's "partners". If you respond affirmatively, I will close my hotmail account and expect that the non-public information provided to Microsoft by me will be deleted as above, following 90 days of inactivity. If you must respond negatively, please forward my question to someone who will guarantee that the non-public information provided to Microsoft by me will be deleted as above, or who will state, for the record, that it simply cannot (or will not) be done prior to responding. I should like a name in the latter case. In either case, if I have not heard from a representative of hotmail or passport in three days, I will take this matter up again. I eagerly await your reply.

Thank you.

>From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
>To:
>Subject: RE: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
>Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 23:02:00 -0800
>
>Hello Mephistopheles51,
> Thank you for writing to Microsoft .NET Passport.
> Regarding your inquiry, Email services of Hotmail Passport IDs are
>automatically deactivated after 30 days of inactivity. After such time,
>your Hotmail Passport will cease to be an email account but you can still
>continue using the ID on other Participating Passport sites.
> Should you wish to have your Passport ID purged from our system, please
>refrain from accessing the account for 90 days. Accounts are automatically
>removed from our system only after the specified period of inactivity.
> I hope I was able to answer your question, if you have other inquiries,
>please do not hesitate to write us back.
>
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Je.
>Microsoft .NET Passport Customer Support Representative
>

>--- Original Message ---
>From: [e-mail]
>To: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
>Sent: Mon Feb 25 19:00:23 PST 2002
>Subject: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
>
>I'm afraid you don't understand, as previously explained.
> I want to delete my "passport", thereby deleting all information provided to
>or collected by Microsoft, and not just my hotmail account. As indicated by
>the recent memorandum from Bill Gates, it appears Microsoft has finally
>realized that it must earn users' trust. This is a step in the right
>direction. Users are not a cash machine for any corporation that decides to
>abuse its monopoly status for the benefit of the marketing and advertising
>departments of its many "partners".
> However, the recent attacks on hotmail, and the vulnerabilities in
>Microsoft's ".net" and "passport" services have convinced me that none of
>the information I provided to Microsoft is truly secure, not even my name,
>address, or IP, and that Microsoft cannot be trusted not to use the
>information provided or collected for its own gain, and to my detriment.
>Therefore, I would like to delete all information I provided to Microsoft,
>or which has been collected by Microsoft about me, in its entirety.
> Please tell me how to do that, or direct my inquiry to someone who can.
>Merely deleting my hotmail account simply will not suffice. Thank you.

> >From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
> >To:
> >Subject: RE: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> >Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:21:11 -0800
> >
> >Hello Mephistopheles51,
> >
> >
> >Thank you for writing back to Microsoft .NET Passport.
> >
> >With regard to your concern, please be guided on the procedures of deleting
> >your [e-mail] account.
> >
> > >>> To close your Hotmail account
> >
> >1. In the upper right corner of any Hotmail page, click "Help".
> >
> >2. In the MSN Hotmail Help window, click "Find", type "Close account", and
> >then click "Go".
> >
> >3. In the search results, click the "Close your Hotmail account" link. 4.
> >Follow the instructions to close your account.
> >
> >You can also close your Hotmail account by not signing in to the account
> >for 30 days or within the first 10 days after you set up your account.
> >Hotmail then marks your account as "Inactive", your stored messages are
> >permanently deleted, and inbound messages are returned to the sender. You
> >can reactivate your account by going to the sign-in page and typing your
> >sign-in name and password. If your account remains "Inactive" for 90 days,
> >Hotmail permanently deletes it. You cannot reactivate your deleted account
> >because it has been completely removed from our system. You must register
> >for a new one.
> >
> >Note: If you want to permanently close your Hotmail account, do not sign in
> >to Hotmail or any other .NET Passport site (such as Messenger or eShop) for
> >which you use your [e-mail] .NET Passport for a full 90 days. In
> >addition, if your Hotmail account is closed, your hotmail.com .NET Passport
> >is also closed.
> > Microsoft .NET Passport has comprehensive online help available to you.
> >For more information about Microsoft .NET Passport or help with Microsoft
> >.NET Passport features, click the Help link on a Microsoft .NET Passport
> >web page. When the help window opens, click the appropriate topic, or click
> >the All Topics link at the top of the help window for a categorized list of
> >all Microsoft .NET Passport help topics.
> >
> >Thank you for using Microsoft .NET Passport. If you have further questions,
> >please reply to this e-mail message.
> >
> >
> >
> >Sincerely,
> >
> >Lo.
> >Microsoft .NET Passport Customer Support Representative
> >

> >--- Original Message ---
> >From: [e-mail]
> >To: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
>
> >Sent: Fri Feb 22 17:35:47 PST 2002
> >Subject: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> >
> >I'm afraid you don't understand. I want to delete my "passport". Microsoft
> >simply cannot be trusted with the information I provided, and cannot be
> >trusted not to attempt to collect more and more associative information to
> >be sold to its marketing and advertising "partners". I do not want any
> >information I provided to Microsoft to exist on Microsoft's servers at all.
> > The help page simply states that I will be closing my hotmail account, and
> >that after 90 days my hotmail account will be deleted, but that deletion of
> >my hotmail account will not affect my passport, and that I may reactivate my
> >hotmail account at any time within 90 days simply by signing in to hotmail.
> >This is not acceptable.
> > Please direct me to a link that will allow me to delete my passport, thus
> >removing all passport information collected by Microsoft.
> > As an aside, why do hotmail.msn.com, passport.com, and msn.com need 14
> >cookies between them? Don't you find that a little excessive? I certainly do.
> > Thank you!

> > >From: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
>
> > >To:
> > >Subject: RE: CST60498798ID - delete my account
> > >Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 19:31:37 -0800
> > >
> > >Hello mephistopheles51,
> > >
> > >Thank you for writing to Microsoft .NET Passport.
> > > In response to your concern, I have provided below the procedure on how
> > >to delete your [e-mail] .NET Passport account.
> > > >>> To close your Hotmail account
> > > 1. In the upper right corner of any Hotmail page, click "Help".
> > > 2. In the MSN Hotmail Help window, click "Find", type "Close account",
> > >and then click "Go".
> > > 3. In the search results, click the "Close your Hotmail account" link.
> >4.
> > >Follow the instructions to close your account.
> > > You can also close your Hotmail account by not signing in to the account
> > >for 30 days or within the first 10 days after you set up your account.
> > >Hotmail then marks your account as "Inactive", your stored messages are
> > >permanently deleted, and inbound messages are returned to the sender. You
> > >can reactivate your account by going to the sign-in page and typing your
> > >sign-in name and password. If your account remains "Inactive" for 90 days,
> > >Hotmail permanently deletes it. You cannot reactivate your deleted account
> > >because it has been completely removed from our system. You must register
> > >for a new one.
> > > Note: If you want to permanently close your Hotmail account, do not sign
> > >in to Hotmail or any other .NET Passport site (such as Messenger or eShop)
> > >for which you use your [e-mail] .NET Passport for a full 90 days.
> > >In addition, if your Hotmail account is closed, your hotmail.com .NET
> > >Passport is also closed.
> > > Microsoft .NET Passport has comprehensive online help available to you.
> > >For more information about Microsoft .NET Passport or help with Microsoft
> > >.NET Passport features, click the Help link on a Microsoft .NET Passport
> > >web page. When the help window opens, click the appropriate topic, or click
> > >the All Topics link at the top of the help window for a categorized list of
> > >all Microsoft .NET Passport help topics.
> > >
> > >Thank you for using Microsoft .NET Passport. If you have further questions,
> > >please reply to this e-mail message.
> > >
> > >
> > >Sincerely,
> > >
> > >Ed.
> > >Microsoft .NET Passport Customer Support Representative
> > >

> > >--- Original Message ---
> > >From: [e-mail]
> > >To: "Microsoft .NET Passport Support"
> >
> > >Sent: Tue Feb 19 18:51:42 PST 2002
> > >Subject: delete my account
> > >
> > >CustomerName : don't need don't need
> > >UpdateCountry : false, false
> > >CUBirthdate : don't need
> > >BrowserVersion : don't need
> > >OperatingSystem : don't need
> > >ErrorMessage : n/a
> > >Submit : Send
> > >ContactEmailAddress : [e-mail]
> > >Country : US
> > >FirstName : don't need
> > >LastName : don't need
> > >Region : 19283
> > >PostalCode : don't need
> > >Comments : you don't need any of this information to delete my account
> > >RIGHT NOW.
> >
> >Don't Believe the Hype!*
> >*and it's all hype...

Straining the limits of analogy...

Watching Microsoft deal with "consumers" is like being an orderly in the coma ward, and walking in on the head physician while he's raping unconscious patients in their hospital beds.

Is this M$'s Operation Footbullet?

Viruses, security holes and general indifference about computer security; price-gouging licensing schemes; BSA audits; FUD about open source software; and now a breach of the privacy of Hotmail users (not to mention increasingly poor service for Hotmail). And then there's the antitrust trial, with revelations of threats and retaliation against OEM's, ISP's and software vendors; arrogant definace of the DOJ and the courts; no willingness to compomise, no insight or remorse; fabricated evidence in the courtroom; and Bill Gates on his deposition video in a seething rage, rocking back and forth in his chair, playing ignorant and obstinate, claiming not to understand simple words and not to remember crucial business decisions, only to be squarely contradicted by his own email.

When the Church of $cientology began a few years ago to confront their critics on the Internet, some of the critics began to refer to their campaign as Operation Footbullet, because the Co$ simply blundered again and again in highly public fashion. Their corruption and outright craziness became more obvious than ever before to anyone who cared to look.

Has the Micro$oft Corporation been conducting its own Operation Footbullet? Up until about two or three years ago, much of this was ignored by the media and there was almost no awareness of their excesses in the general public. And of course many people still don't pay much attention to the software industry. But anyone who pays the least bit of attention is faced with a constant stream of reports about ruthlessness and frankly criminal behavior, a profound lack of respect for consumers and business partners, and a general stench of unethical behavior that can only be overpowered by Enron's awful stink. I suppose Enron is ahead of M$ on the scales of immorality, but nevertheless, M$ is risking going down in history as one of the greediest and most ruthless plutocrats since the the robber barons of the railroad and Standard Oil days -- and those are the ones who've held the record for over a hundred years!

Of course, some people will respond that I'm exaggerating. I'll probably even get modded as Flamebait or Troll. And indeed, it really is hard to state the case against Micro$oft without sounding like a zealot, because the accusations are simply so hair-raising, it's hard for the uninitiated to believe that they're all true (this is, in fact, what I used to think about the Church of $cientology). Judge Jackson should not have shot his mouth off the way he did, but who could blame the man, he probably just couldn't help himself. The awful fact is that M$ is one of the most appalling corporate gangsters in all of history.

It's a free service...

Let me get this straight:
- It's totally free
- They provide a huge pile of hardware, software and people to keep up the site and datastores.
- They don't want money in return
- Everything but the sun costs money

So you people think that MS is a philantropic organisation? ALWAYS ask yourself when something is 'free' and the provider of the service has to spent a lot of money to give you this service for 'free': "Where's the catch?". I find this moaning about Hotmail rather silly, if you ask me. If you don't like it, get a real ISP account. Yes that costs money, start wondering where that money's for.

Legality in the UK

I believe that if MS has pulled this stunt on its UK based customers, that it is liable for a £500 fine for every customer that files a complaint with the Data Protection Registrar (which if everyone did, would probably for a few hundred million sterling, or half a billion US$).

In the UK we have an act called the 'Data Protection Act' which means any companies doing business in the UK are *obliged* to require our permission to do anything outside their company with our personal data we provide to them, and breaking these rules can be swiftly and harshly punished. In extreme cases, it can result in a business being shut down entirely.

Other fringe benefits include the right to demand a company never contacts you again, and the right to demand to see *all* information a company holds about you, so you can correct this information if it is incorrect.

MigrateCookiesAcrossDomains

I was just logging out after turning off those options that had magically been turned on when I noticed this URL go by in the address bar

http://msn.co.uk/webinclude/MigrateCookiesAcrossDo mains.asp

fortunately, the system was being so slow that I had time to capture it. It looks as if the protections we are supposed to have about cookies not being sent to different domains mean nothing to Microsoft. No surprise there then.

Re:Boycott Hotmail

I wonder why people still USE hotmail.

Seriously, you DO all realize that there are TONS better providers out there that offer FREE e-mail, kick ass spam filters, tons of space, and far more features that Hotmail does, right?

FREE.

::sighs::

Guess not. . . .

Hotmail is big, and, err, they are big. Did I mention that they are big?

Is that really all that good of a reason to choose your free e-mail provider? Because they are big? (actualy I think that it would be a rather piss poor reason. . . .)

I have met a ton of people who do not even realize that their ISP offers them free email accounts. . . .