Microsoft Privacy Statement: Not Very Private

Have you ever read the Microsoft Privacy Statement? One of our techs took a deeper dive and found some very interesting things.

‘Cookies’ are small text files placed on your device by Microsoft. In their privacy document, they tell you that they use cookies and similar technologies to help collect data. These cookies allow them to ‘enable you to sign-in’ and ‘provide interest-based advertising’ which I read to mean they watch how and when I sign in and choose advertising to send me.

Under ‘Personal Data We Collect,’ if you hit the Learn More option, you’ll see some other info. They also obtain data from third parties and these include demographic data; social network info when you grant permission to them; service providers that determine your location based on your IP address so they can customize certain products to your location.

Other data they might collect includes name and contact data such as first/last name, address, and phone number; credentials such as passwords, password hints, and other security info; demographic data such as age, gender, country, preferred language; voice and text search queries or commands; getting worried…

How about your interests and favorites such as teams you follow in a sports app, stocks you track, favorite cities you add to your weather app. Well at this point, I stopped reading. I’m glad I decline whenever given the change, but to log into some of these products, you have to agree to the terms, and I’ve only shared a small portion with you. Be careful out there… – CMW