Microsoft defends decision to give up search data

Macworld ^ | 01/25/2006 | Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

[Panerai]

Microsoft Corp. is on the defensive over its decision to hand over search data to the U.S. government, saying the company would never compromise the privacy of its customers.

On the company’s MSN Search Weblog (http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/default.aspx), Ken Moss, general manager of MSN Web Search, said that Microsoft did not divulge any personal user information when it provided the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with data from its search service.

Moss said that the privacy of Microsoft customers is “non-negotiable” and the company aims to continue to protect customer data and information. However, Microsoft thought it best to cooperate with the government’s subpoena, handed down about six months ago, but the company did so in a way so it would not violate customers’ privacy.

“At MSN Search, we have strict guidelines in place to protect the privacy of our customers data, and I think you’ll agree that privacy was fully protected,” Moss said. “We tried to strike the right balance in a very sensitive matter.”

Microsoft and other search engine providers Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc. have come under heavy fire from both Internet users and privacy advocates for complying with a U.S. government subpoena of their Internet search records. The DOJ said it needs the information to defend the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which it is trying to revive after it was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago.

Specifically, Moss said that Microsoft provided data that allows the DOJ to see how frequently some query terms occurred, but does not allow the government to look up an IP (Internet Protocol) address to see what information was queried and cannot look for users who searched for certain terms.

[ncountylee]

Moss said that the privacy of Microsoft customers is “non-negotiable” and the company aims to continue to protect customer data and information.

Hey Moss...how about China? Same policy?

[Semper Paratus]

I have to laugh about people worried about giving the Government information when the the IRS and the Bureau of the Census pretty have everything about us already.

[ShadowAce]

[untrained skeptic]

Google is getting a lot of marketing milage out of disagreeing about turning over what they consider to be their intellectual property while selling it as a privacy issue even though no information that allows the identity of the searchers was even requested.

There's no real privacy issue, but spinning their disagreement with the justice department that way has been pure marketing genius.

[Bush2000]

Genius, that is, until it was revealed that Google caved to China without a fight...