If you don't like it, opt out!

Text:

| Print

| Share:

8 commentsTuesday, August 19, 2008

Microsoft: Everybody Else is Doing it

If you don't like it, opt out!

8 Comments

By Peter (WPN reader) - Thu, 08/21/2008 - 05:59

They still track you, even if you opt out

According to the page that's presented after you opt out, they continue to track you. What you have opted out of, is "targetted advertising", not tracking...

Even if you choose not to receive personalized advertising, Microsoft will continue to collect the same information as you browse the web and use our online services. However, this information and any information collected from you in the past won’t be used for displaying personalized ads.

By Don (WPN reader) - Wed, 08/20/2008 - 16:10

"Microsoft claims that users

"Microsoft claims that users can opt-out of having their data collected, but finding the way to do this is the hard part, which is probably why only 1,800 people have actually opted out."

Make that 1,801. As a general principle I opt out of everything whenever possible. It's pretty amazing how tough some companies make it.

I have reduced my snail mail junk mail by about a ton a year. I make a concerted effort to reduce junk emails as well.

If I want to hear about some-one's "amazing once in a lifetime offer" I'll go to them.

By Stomfi (WPN reader) - Wed, 08/20/2008 - 06:30

Cop out

After trying out Vista on a Dell XPS 3GB Core Duo and being totally blown away by how slow it was compared to XP on less powerful hardware, I copped out of the whole Microsoft saga and replaced Vista with 5 partitions, all running different flavours of Linux or BSD.

Now only Google and the rest of the Internet cookie brigade can spy on me, albeit 3 times faster than on Vista.

By Robert (WPN reader) - Wed, 08/20/2008 - 01:09

What's the big deal?

I still don't get the big deal over "targeted advertising". Unless you are afraid that you might be served porn ads while running a presentation due to browser history I don't get the big deal.

Rather show me ads for things I might actually be interested in. Because lets face it, the search results aren't exactly all that great.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Wed, 08/20/2008 - 00:48

"Even if you choose not to

"Even if you choose not to receive personalized advertising, Microsoft will continue to collect the same information as you browse the web and use our online services. However, this information and any information collected from you in the past won’t be used for displaying personalized ads."

By logo design blog (WPN reader) - Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:47

Found it in first try

My girlfriend found the opt out option in the second try. She is so proud of this achievement that she has decided to take the whole day off from work.

Btw, she is a web marketer and spends 14+ hours a day on the web.

Us non-web folks don't have much chance.

By seo syracuse (WPN reader) - Tue, 08/19/2008 - 14:54