Microsoft Releases Your Personal Hotmail Info

Kanon Fodder · Post by **Kanon Fodder** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 12:51 am

Got this heads up from my daughter. It was true for me.
I had my suspicions already beacause, ever since they have been trying to flog extra storage space I have been getting a lot more crap in my Inbox and Junkmail box :
If you have a Hotmail account - or if you've used Microsoft Passport - for more than a month, there's something you need to check. Or, more accurately, uncheck. Quickly.

A small publication known as The Eastside Journal, based in Bellevue, Washington http://www.eastsidejournal.com/sited/story/html/92308 ,
reports that Microsoft has taken, uh, liberties with your confidential information.

A bit of history. Microsoft bought Hotmail in January 1998. It's still the number-one location for free email: log on to www.hotmail.com and you can send and receive email messages at no charge.

Almost 120,000,000 people use the system, worldwide. A couple of years ago, Microsoft hooked up Hotmail to its Passport system. Variously known as Microsoft Passport, Windows Passport, MSN Passport, and/or .NET Passport, all of the names refer to Microsoft's giant central database of customer information. If you want to use Hotmail, you have to sign up for a Passport
- and in so doing you're added to the Passport database. Microsoft Messenger requires a Passport, too. Windows XP nags mercilessly, offering all sorts of goodies to get you to divulge your name, address, age, phone number, and the like, as grist for the Passport maw.

If you signed up for Hotmail - or anything else that uses Passport - more than a couple of months ago, you may be in for a big surprise. It seems that Microsoft changed the rules while you weren't looking.

Unilaterally, Microsoft may have granted itself permission to pass along your personal information to other companies that use Passport on their Web sites. The personal information includes your email address, your birthday, your country and zip code, your gender and occupation. Has Microsoft taken liberties with your data? There's an easy way to check.

Go into Hotmail.

Click Options (to the right of the tab that says "Address Book").

Click Personal Profile (in the upper left corner).

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and see whether the boxes marked "Share my e-mail address" and "Share my other registration information" have been checked.

Those boxes didn't exist when I signed up for Hotmail, and chances are pretty good they didn't exist when you signed up for it, either. I certainly never gave Microsoft permission to hand out my email address - or my birthday, gender or occupation. Yet both of those boxes on my personal profile were checked. I bet they're checked on your personal profile, too.

Details are still murky, but it looks like Microsoft added those two check boxes a couple of months ago, and did itself a big favor by checking both of them for all of the Passport holders at the time.

Hartmann · Post by **Hartmann** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 1:08 am

O my god, you're right!

These damned bastards!

Thanks for sharing the info, I unchecked those new boxes now.

But again: this is outrageous! I really hope someone will sue them for that. I was already wondering why the amount of spam had increased so much recently ...

Hartmann

screamer · Post by **screamer** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 2:22 am

thx

didnt know it was there.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 3:01 am

Those bastards:mad:

Oh well I hope they shared my info because other than my 3D name and my Hotmail email addy everything else in my personal profile was fabricated. I figured they would share the info regardless of whether I said they could or not. Contaminate the data base with disinformation:D

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 4:56 am

Hmmmmm

Hey when I consider my phone is publicly listed, and everyone else know where I am...I guess I really could care less myself if Microsoft does.

I constantly write letters to Macleans magazine with entirely opinionated views. And I leave my name basic address and email with that.

I have signed up for all sorts of things in my life too.

Hell if Gates wants to, I will drop my shorts and let him have statistics on that too heheh:D

Folks, your data was accessible the day you were born, and there is nothing you can do to stop someone getting it either.

Now I do advise you employ an updated antivirus. That much is worth the fuss.

The only people that need to hide, are those that have done something wrong.

KG Erwin · Post by **KG Erwin** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 5:02 am

Thanks for that heads up.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 5:46 am

It's not so much a question of hiding Les, I value my privacy. I don't appreciate being targeted for sales. Hell if their direct marketing folks were worth a **** they'd know that deluging me with spam and telemarketing is a friggin waste of time. I don't buy anything from direct marketing. Never have, never will and I don't care if they're giving stuff away.

I don't appreciate having my activities monitored by anyone whether it's spyware on my computer, the gubb'ment, or that perv in the adjacent apartment.

Big thing here in the US is the "shopping club" where you give all this personal info to your local grocery store and they give you a card to get big discounts on grits. Of course they capture all the info about who you are, what you buy, when you buy it and sell that info to direct marketers.

When I signed up I did so as Juan Marachal (hey Giants fans), 25 years old, a doctor, making $450,000/year, 6 kids and used a phony street address in a ritzy part of town and a fake phone number.

Stick that in their demographics and pound it.

scimitar · Post by **scimitar** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 9:16 am

Thanks for the info

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 4:10 pm

Hehehh ya know Mojo, considering how easy your strategy is, is it any wonder polls are unscientific:D

I personally get a kick out of telemarketers trying to sell me long distance....especially when I am in a bored and foul mood.

Cheaper? why would I want cheaper, I'm rich and irresponsible...I have yet to experience a come back from telling them that one heheh. Plus putting them on hold is always funny.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 4:31 pm

With stories like this going around, I'd wonder why anyone would use hotmail. How can you be sure unchecking those boxes actually switches it off? You couldn't trust them to inform you of the options being put in there, how can you trust them to it working the way it appears it should work?

Hartmann · Post by **Hartmann** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 9:02 pm

Originally posted by Charles_22
With stories like this going around, I'd wonder why anyone would use hotmail. How can you be sure unchecking those boxes actually switches it off? You couldn't trust them to inform you of the options being put in there, how can you trust them to it working the way it appears it should work?

That's true. Did you guys know that you actually even can't cancel your account?

Hartmann

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 11:40 pm

It has been my experience, that all the people I know personally, that use Hotmail, do so, so that they can actually retain their privacy.

Is it required, that the submitted info even be genuine?

Dan Bozza · Post by **Dan Bozza** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:37 am

Originally posted by Hartmann

That's true. Did you guys know that you actually even can't cancel your account?

Hartmann

If you don't access your account for I think it's 30 days, the account will be closed.

Dan Bozza · Post by **Dan Bozza** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:39 am

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
It has been my experience, that all the people I know personally, that use Hotmail, do so, so that they can actually retain their privacy.

Is it required, that the submitted info even be genuine?

Even if it was (which it may be, who knows), how the heck can MS verify each account? I'd hate to be the guy who had to make 120 million phone calls.