Hotmail users’ data can be shared

Hotmail users’ data can be shared


Users who sign up with Hotmail today by default have these personal data sharing options unchecked; but most Hotmail users will currently find "share my e-mail addresss" and "share my other registration information" checked.

By Bob Sullivan MSNBC


May 17 — MSN Hotmail users may be surprised to learn that Microsoft Corp. currently has permission to share their e-mail address, birthday, zip code, and occupation with virtually any of its business partners. Hotmail users exploring their e-mail setting have discovered two new options, both now checked “yes” by default for most: “Share My e-mail address” and “Share My other registration information.” Microsoft says Hotmail customers had agreed to share such information when they accepted the company’s privacy policy, and the check boxes are actually a privacy enhancement that offers new options to limit the sharing of the data.

• Yellow Pages

• Auctions at uBid

• Personals Channel

• Shopping

• Newsletters

• Weather

THE CHECK BOXES were added to the Options tab under “personal settings” in March, according to company spokesperson Adam Sohn, along with a third check box: “Share my first and last name.”
Users who sign up for Hotmail today will find all three boxes are unchecked by default, a sign that Microsoft is committed to giving users more control over where their information is distributed, he said.
(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
But everyone who signed up before the personal setting change — a large proportion of Hotmail’s estimated 110 million users — currently has the privacy settings set to give Microsoft permission to share the data.
Also liable to be shared: Country/Region, State, Gender, Accessibility, and Time Zone.
“In retrospect, we probably could have have done a better job of communicating that to folks,” Sohn said. “We’re figuring out right now what’s the best way we can make sure people understand.”

SpamCom foundation president Laura Atkins checked her personal Hotmail preferences when notified of the change by MSNBC and was irritated to find the boxes checked.
“That’s amusing,” she said sarcastically. “I have specifically said to Microsoft, ‘No, don’t publish my e-mail address in the member directory. I would assume that means not to publish my e-mail address at all. Now, the fact that they will share my e-mail with other .Net passport sites does not make me happy, and I suspect I’m not alone.”
The change is reminiscent of a recent change at Yahoo.com’s free e-mail service. In that change, Yahoo granted itself permission to spam its users by creating a new “marketing preferences” page that lets users pick “yes or no” to specific categories of marketing pitches. The problem was, Yahoo! set every users’ option to “yes” - even if long ago, they indicated they never wanted any Yahoo! spam.

In Hotmail’s case, even users who indicated they didn’t want their e-mail shared in a Hotmail directory are now learning that not only their e-mail, but other information, can be shared with a host of outside companies.
The change went unnoticed until a local columnist for the Eastside Journal in Washington state wrote about it after receiving a complaint from a reader.
Sohn insists the check boxes don’t represent any change to Hotmail users’ privacy agreement. He said Hotmail’s old privacy policy gave Microsoft permission to share their data, so the company’s choice to check the boxes affirmatively by default simply reflects the user’s already-declared preferences. In fact, leaving the boxes unchecked would have been unfair to users, he said.

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