Return to Email spam Microsoft's Privacy Statements January 2011
Return to Email spam
Collection of Your
Personal Information
At some Microsoft sites, we ask you
to provide personal information,
such as your e-mail address, name,
home or work address, or telephone number. We may also collect
demographic information, such as your ZIP
code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites. If
you choose to make a purchase or sign up for a paid subscription
service, we will ask for additional information, such as your credit
card number and billing address, which is used to create a Microsoft
billing account.
In order to access some Microsoft services,
you will be asked to sign in with an e-mail address and password,
which we refer to as your Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport
Network credentials. You can use the same credentials to sign in to
many different Microsoft sites and services, as well as those of
select Microsoft partners. By signing in on one Microsoft site or
service, you may be automatically
signed into other Microsoft sites and services. If you access
our services via a mobile phone, you may also use your telephone
number and a PIN as an alternative credential to your username and
password. As part of creating your credentials, you may also be
requested to provide questions and secret answers, which we use to
help verify your identity and assist in resetting your password, as
well as an alternate e-mail address. Some services may require added
security, and in these cases, you may be asked to create an
additional security key. Finally, a
unique ID number will be assigned to your credentials which
will be used to identify your credentials and associated
information.
We may collect information
about your interaction with Microsoft sites and services. For
example, we may use website analytics tools on our site to retrieve
information from your browser, including the site you came
from, the search engine(s) and the keywords you used to find our
site, the pages you view within our site, your browser add-ons, and
your browser's width and height. We may also use technologies, such
as cookies and web beacons
(described below), to collect information about the pages you view,
the links you click and other actions you take on our sites and
services. We collect certain standard information
that your browser sends to every website you visit, such as
your IP address, browser type and language, access times and
referring Web site addresses. Each time a Microsoft site or service
connect to the Internet, we may also collect standard device
information such as a unique ID associated with your installation of
a service, device manufacturer, device name, model, software version
and mobile operator. We also deliver advertisements (see the Display
of Advertising section below) and provide Web site analytics tools on
non-Microsoft sites and services,
and we may collect information
about page views on these third party sites as well.
When
you receive newsletters or promotional e-mail from Microsoft, we may
use web beacons (described below), customized links or similar
technologies to determine whether the e-mail has been opened and
which links you click in order to provide you more focused e-mail
communications or other information.
In order to offer you a more
consistent and personalized experience in your interactions with
Microsoft, information collected through one Microsoft service may be
combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services.
We may also supplement the
information we collect with information obtained from other
companies. For example, we may use services from other
companies that enable us to derive a general geographic area based on
your IP address in order to customize certain services to your
geographic area.
Use of Your Personal
Information
Microsoft collects and uses your personal
information to operate and improve its sites and services. These uses
may include providing you with more effective customer service;
making the sites or services easier to use by eliminating the need
for you to repeatedly enter the same information; performing research
and analysis aimed at improving our products, services and
technologies; and displaying content and advertising that are
customized to your interests and preferences. For more information
about the use of information for advertising, see the Display of
Advertising section below.
We also use your personal
information to communicate with you. We may send certain mandatory
service communications such as welcome letters, billing reminders,
information on technical service issues, and security announcements.
Some Microsoft services, such as Windows Live Hotmail, may send
periodic member letters that are considered part of the service. We
may also occasionally send you product surveys or promotional
mailings to inform you of other products or services available
from Microsoft and its affiliates.
Personal information
collected on Microsoft sites and services may be stored
and processed in the United States or any other country in
which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or service providers
maintain facilities. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as
set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the
collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.
Sharing of Your
Personal Information
Except as described in this
statement, we will not disclose
your personal information outside of Microsoft and its controlled
subsidiaries and affiliates without your consent. Some
Microsoft sites allow you to choose to share your personal
information with select Microsoft partners so that they can contact
you about their products, services or offers. Other sites, such as
MSN, do not share your contact information with third parties for
marketing purposes, but instead may give you a choice as to whether
you wish to receive communications from Microsoft on behalf of
external business partners about a partner's particular offering
(without transferring your personal information to the third party).
See the Communication Preferences section below for more
information.
Some Microsoft services may be co-branded and
offered in conjunction with another company. If you register for or
use such services, both Microsoft and the other company may receive
information collected in conjunction with the co-branded
services.
We occasionally hire other companies to provide
limited services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and
delivery of mailings, providing customer support, hosting websites,
processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our
services. Those service providers will be permitted to obtain only
the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are
required to maintain the confidentiality of the information and are
prohibited from using it for any other purpose. However, for credit
card processing, our fraud detection vendors may use aggregate
data to help improve their service. This helps them more accurately
detect fraudulent uses of credit cards. We may access or disclose
information about you, including the content of your communications,
in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or
legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our
customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies
governing your use of the services; or (c) act on a good faith belief
that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal
safety of Microsoft employees, customers or the public.
Accessing Your
Personal Information
You
may have the ability to view
or edit your personal information online. In order to help
prevent your personal information from being viewed by others, you
will be required to sign in with your credentials (e-mail address and
password). The appropriate method(s) for accessing your personal
information will depend on which sites or services you have used.
Microsoft.com - You can access and update your profile on
microsoft.com by visiting the Microsoft.com Profile
Center.
Microsoft Billing and Account Services - If you have a
Microsoft Billing account, you can add to or update your information
at the Microsoft Billing Web site by clicking on the "Personal
Information" or "Billing Information"
links.
Microsoft Connect - If you are a registered user of
Microsoft Connect, you can access and edit your personal information
by clicking Manage Your Connect Profile at the Microsoft Connect Web
site.
MSN & Windows Live - If you have used MSN or Windows
Live services, you can update your profile information, change your
password, view the unique ID associated with your credentials, or
close certain accounts by visiting MSN / Windows Live Account
Services.
MSN Public Profile - If you have created a public
profile on MSN, you may also edit or delete information in your
public profile by going to the MSN Member Directory.
Some
Microsoft sites or services may collect personal information that is
not accessible via the links above. However, in such cases, you may
be able to access that information through alternative means of
access described by the service. Or you can contact us using the
contact information provided below, and we will contact you within 30
days regarding your request.
Communication
Preferences
You can stop
the delivery of future promotional e-mail from Microsoft sites and
services by following the specific instructions in the e-mail
you receive.
You may
also have the option of proactively making choices about the receipt
of promotional e-mail, telephone calls, and postal mail from
particular Microsoft sites or services by visiting and signing
into the following pages:
The Microsoft.com Profile Center
allows you to choose whether you wish to receive marketing
communications from Microsoft.com, to select whether Microsoft.com
may share your contact information with selected third parties, and
to subscribe or unsubscribe to newsletters about our products and
services.
The MSN & Windows Live Communications
Preferences page allows you to choose whether you wish to receive
marketing material from MSN or Windows Live. You may subscribe and
unsubscribe to MSN Newsletters by going to the MSN Newsletters
website.
These choices do
not apply to the display of online advertising. Nor do they
apply to the receipt of mandatory service communications that are
considered part of certain Microsoft services, which you may receive
periodically unless you cancel the service.
Location Based
Services
Certain services or features can use information
about your location to provide services you request or personalize
your experience. When you use a location based service or feature,
available cell tower data, Wi-Fi
data and Global Position System (GPS) data may be sent to Microsoft.
Microsoft uses location information to provide the services you
request, personalize your experience and improve Microsoft products
and services. Depending upon the service you are using this
information will only be associated with information that can be used
to identify you or contact you or your device when necessary to
provide the service or with your consent. Certain services may allow
you to control when location information is sent to Microsoft or made
available to others. In some cases, location information is essential
to the service and may require uninstalling the feature or
discontinuing the service to stop the sending of location
information.
Display of
Advertising
Many of the Web sites and online services we
offer, as well as those of our partners, are supported by
advertising. Through the Microsoft
Advertising Platform, we may display ads on our own sites and
the sites of our advertising partners.
When we display online
advertisements to you, we will place a persistent
cookie on your device in order to recognize your device each
time we display an ad to you. Because we may serve advertisements on
many different Web sites, we are able to compile information over
time about where you, or others who are using your device, saw and/or
clicked on the advertisements we display. We use this information to
make predictions about your
characteristics, interests or preferences and to display targeted
advertisements that we believe may be of interest to you. We
may also associate this information with your subsequent visit,
purchase or other activity on participating advertisers' Web sites in
order to determine the effectiveness of the advertisements.
While
we may use some of the information we collect in order to personalize
the ads we show you, we designed our systems to select ads based only
on data that does not personally
and directly identify you. For example, we may select the ads
we display according to certain general interest categories or
segments that we have inferred based on (a) demographic or interest
data, including any you may have provided when creating an account
(e.g. age, zip or postal code, gender), demographic or interest data
acquired from other companies, and a general geographic
location derived from your IP address, (b) the pages you view
and links you click when using Microsoft's and its advertising
partners' Web sites and services, and (c) the search terms you enter
when using Microsoft's Internet search services, such as Live
Search.
When we display personalized ads, we take a
number of steps designed to protect
your privacy. For example, we store page views, clicks and
search terms used for ad personalization separately
from your contact information or other data that directly
identifies you (such as your name, e-mail address, etc.). Further, we
have built in technological and process safeguards designed to
prevent the unauthorized correlation of this data. We also give you
the ability to opt-out of
personalized ads. For more information on the opt-out feature,
please visit
https://choice.live.com/advertisementchoice/Default.aspx. To opt-out
of personalized ads delivered to your mobile device, select the
option "On any computer after I've signed in to Windows Live"
provided at the opt-out page at
https://choice.live.com/advertisementchoice/Default.aspx.
We
also provide third party ad
delivery through our Atlas
subsidiary, and you may read the Atlas privacy statement at
http://www.atlassolutions.com/privacy.aspx.
Although the
majority of the online advertisements on Microsoft sites are
displayed by Microsoft, we also allow
third-party ad serving companies, including other ad networks,
to display advertisements on our sites. These companies currently
include, but are not limited to: 24/7 Real Media, Advertising.com,
Bidclix, BlueStreak, Burst Media, DoubleClick, EuroClick, Eyeblaster,
EyeWonder, Falk, Interpolls, Kanoodle, Mediaplex, Pointroll,
TangoZebra, Yahoo! Publisher Network, and Zedo.
These
companies may offer you a way to opt out of ad targeting based on
their cookies. You may find more information by visiting the Web
sites of the companies listed above. Some of these companies are
members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), which offers a
single location to opt out of ad targeting from member companies at
the NAI website at http://www.networkadvertising.org/.
Security of Your
Personal Information
Microsoft is committed to protecting
the security of your personal information. We use a variety of
security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal
information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For
example, we store the personal information you provide on computer
systems with limited access,
which are located in controlled facilities. When we transmit highly
confidential information (such as a credit card number or password)
over the Internet, we protect it through the use of encryption,
such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.
If a
password is used to help protect your accounts and personal
information, it is your responsibility to keep
your password confidential. Do not share this information with
anyone. If you are sharing a
computer with anyone you should always
log out before leaving a site or service to protect access to
your information from subsequent users.
Collection and Use
of Children's Personal Information
Many Microsoft sites
and services are intended for general audiences and do
not knowingly collect any personal information from children.
When a Microsoft site does collect age information, and users
identify themselves as under 13,
the site will either block such users from providing personal
information, or will seek to obtain
consent from parents for the collection, use and sharing of
their children's personal information. We will not knowingly ask
children under the age of 13 to provide more information than is
reasonably necessary to provide our services.
Please note that
if you grant consent for your child to use Microsoft services, this
will include such general audience communication services as e-mail,
instant messaging, and online groups, and your child will be able to
communicate with, and disclose personal information to, other users
of all ages. Parents can change or revoke the consent choices
previously made, and review, edit or request the deletion of their
children's personal information. For example, on MSN and Windows
Live, parents can visit Account Services, and click on "Permission
for kids." If we change this privacy statement in a way
that expands the collection, use or disclosure of children's personal
information to which a parent has previously consented, the parent
will be notified and we will be required to obtain the parent's
additional consent.
We encourage you to talk with your
children about communicating with strangers and disclosing personal
information online. You and your child can visit our online safety
resources for additional information about using the Internet safely.
Use of
Cookies
Microsoft Web sites use
"cookies" to enable you to sign in to our services
and to help personalize your online experience. A cookie is a small
text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page
server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by a Web
server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. Cookies
cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your
computer.
One of the primary purposes of cookies is to
store your preferences and other information on your computer in
order to save you time by eliminating the need to repeatedly enter
the same information and to display your personalized content and
appropriate advertising on your later visits to these sites.
Microsoft Web sites also use cookies as described in the Collection
of your Information and Display of Advertising sections of this
privacy statement.
When you sign in to a site using your
Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport Network credentials, we store
your unique ID number, and the time you signed in, in an encrypted
cookie on your hard disk. This cookie allows you to move from page to
page at the site without having to sign in again on each page. When
you sign out, these cookies are deleted from your computer. We also
use cookies to improve the sign in experience. For example, your
e-mail address may be stored in a cookie that will remain on your
computer after you sign out. This cookie allows your e-mail address
to be pre-populated, so that
you will only need to type your password the next time you sign in.
If you are using a public computer or do not otherwise want this
information to be stored, you can select the appropriate radio button
on the sign-in page, and this cookie will not be used.
You have
the ability to accept or decline
cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but
you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you
prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to sign
in or use other interactive features of Microsoft sites and services
that depend on cookies, and some advertising preferences that are
dependent on cookies may not be able to be respected.
If you
choose to accept cookies, you also have the ability to later delete
cookies that you have accepted. In Internet Explorer 7, you can
delete cookies by selecting "Tools", "Delete
browsing history" and clicking the "Delete Cookies"
button. If you choose to delete cookies, any settings and preferences
controlled by those cookies, including advertising preferences, will
be deleted and may need to be recreated.
Use of Web
Beacons
Microsoft Web pages may contain electronic images
known as Web beacons -
sometimes called single-pixel gifs - that may be used to assist in
delivering cookies on our sites and allow us to count users who have
visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. We may
include Web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or our newsletters
in order to determine whether messages have been opened and acted
upon.
Microsoft may also employ Web beacons from third parties
in order to help us compile aggregated statistics regarding the
effectiveness of our promotional campaigns or other operations of our
sites. We prohibit Web beacons
on our sites from being used by
third parties to collect or access your personal
information.
Finally, we may work with other companies that
advertise on Microsoft sites to place Web beacons on their sites in
order to allow us to develop statistics on how often clicking on an
advertisement on a Microsoft site results in a purchase or other
action on the advertiser's site.
TRUSTe
Certification
Microsoft is a member of the TRUSTe Privacy
Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose
mission is to build trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting
the use of fair information practices. To demonstrate our commitment
to your privacy, we have agreed to disclose our information practices
and have our privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. The
TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through
Microsoft's Web sites, and does not
cover information that may be collected through software
downloaded from such sites.
Enforcement of
This Privacy Statement
If you have questions regarding
this statement, you should first contact us by using our Web form. If
you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry
has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe
at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe
will serve as a liaison with Microsoft to resolve your concerns.
Changes to This
Privacy Statement
We will occasionally update this privacy
statement to reflect changes in our services and customer feedback.
When we post changes to this Statement, we will revise the "last
updated" date at the top of this statement. If there are
material changes to this statement or in how Microsoft will use your
personal information, we will
notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such
changes prior to implementing the change or by directly sending you a
notification. We encourage you to periodically review this statement
to be informed of how Microsoft is protecting your information.
Contacting
Us
Microsoft welcomes your
comments regarding this privacy statement. If you have
questions about this statement or believe that we have not adhered to
it, please contact us using our web form available at
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4320005
or by postal mail at the address provided below. If you have a
technical or general support question, please visit
http://support.microsoft.com to learn more about Microsoft Support
offerings.
Microsoft Privacy, Microsoft Corporation, One
Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington 98052 USA
To find the
Microsoft subsidiary in your country or region, see
http://www.microsoft.com/worldwide/.
Specific Services
and Features
Windows Live ID/Passport
Windows
Live ID (formerly known as Microsoft Passport) is a service that
allows you to use a single e-mail address and password, referred to
as credentials, to sign into most Microsoft sites and services, as
well as those of select Microsoft partners.
You can register
for credentials (e-mail and password) at a site or service that uses
Windows Live ID, or at http:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=98604.
If you have an e-mail address that has been provided by MSN or
Windows Live (e.g. those ending in live.com, msn.com, hotmail.com, or
webtv.net) that e-mail address and the associated password are your
credentials. If you do not wish to use a real e-mail address for your
user name, you may go to the Windows Live ID Website and register
"limited account"
credentials containing a user name ending in @passport.com.
If you access our services via a mobile phone, your
credentials will consist of your telephone number and a PIN. As part
of creating your credentials, you may also be requested to provide an
alternate e-mail address, and questions and secret answers, which we
use to verify your identity and assist in resetting your password.
Some services may require added security, and in these cases, you may
be asked to create an additional security key. Finally, a 64-bit
unique ID number will be assigned to your credentials which will be
used to identify your credentials and associated information.
When
you use your credentials to sign into a site, that sign-in will be
temporarily logged by the Windows Live ID service for the purpose of
ensuring the efficiency and security of the service. This information
in the logs is identified only by
your account's unique ID number, and it is not
linked with personal information unless you call to request
assistance or as required by law.
If you have provided an
e-mail address (i.e. your credentials are not a "limited
account"), Microsoft uses your e-mail address to send you
certain mandatory service communications. For example, a welcome
e-mail message when you first register informing you about the
service, telling you how to manage your credentials. You will receive
a separate e-mail to which you must respond in order to confirm that
you are the owner of the e-mail address associated with those
credentials. This process is designed to verify the validity of the
e-mail address and to help prevent e-mail addresses from being used
without permission of their owners. If you need to reset your
password and cannot access your primary e-mail account, Microsoft may
send password reset e-mail to your alternate e-mail address. Limited
accounts cannot have their passwords reset.
Certain
information will be shared with sites and services that you choose to
sign into using your Windows Live ID. The unique ID number associated
with your credential is encrypted and sent to the site or service
when you sign-in, so it can determine whether you are the same person
from one sign-in session to the next. The following "operational"
information will be shared with sites when you sign in: the version
number assigned to your account (a new number is assigned each time
you change your sign-in information); whether your e-mail address has
been confirmed; and whether your account has been
deactivated.
Additionally, certain sites and services that use
the Windows Live ID service require your e-mail address in order to
provide you with their services. In those cases, your e-mail address
will be provided when you sign in to those services. Your password is
not shared as part of sign-in, however, the site where you created
your credentials may have limited
access to credential information in order to help you
reset your password or provide other support services.
If
you received your account from a company, organization or individual
that also provided you with an e-mail address (for example, your ISP,
employer or school), your account may belong to a "sponsored
domain." If the e-mail services are co-branded, both service
providers may be treated as a sponsor. In a sponsored
domain, the sponsor has a unique role with respect to the
credentials created in that domain. In order to permit the sponsor to
provide support for credentials, the sponsor may have limited access
to your Windows Live ID in order to reset the password or manage the
credentials.
Please note that sites and services that use the
Windows Live ID service can
use or share your e-mail address or other personal information that
you provide to them as described in their
privacy statements. However they can only share your unique ID
number with third parties in order to fulfill a service or
transaction you may have requested. All sites or services that use
the Windows Live ID service are required to have a posted privacy
statement, but we do not control or monitor the privacy practices of
those sites, and their privacy practices will vary. You should
carefully review the privacy
statement for each site you sign in to in order to
determine how each site or service will use the information it
collects.
You can access your personal information by
going to https://accountservices.passport.net.
You can change your user name if your Windows Live ID does not belong
to a sponsored domain. You can always change your password, alternate
e-mail address, and question and secret answer. You may also close
your Windows Live ID by going to
https://accountservices.passport.net and clicking Settings, and then
"Close your account." If your account is in a "sponsored
domain" as described above, there may be a special process for
closing your account. Please note that if you are an MSN or Windows
Live user, if you go to Account Services on the Windows Live ID Web
site, you may be redirected to Account Services for those sites.
If
you attempt to register for a Windows Live ID and find that someone
else has already created credentials with your e-mail address as the
user name, you have the option of contacting us and requesting that
the credentials using your e-mail address be forced to change so that
you may use your e-mail address when creating your credentials.
More
information about Windows Live ID is available at
http://www.passport.net.
Windows Live Calendar and Contacts
When you use
Windows Live Calendar and create contacts, the information you enter
there about yourself and others is stored. This information may
include: calendar appointments, e-mail address, first and last name,
nickname, home address, work address, phone number, and birthday. You
may view, edit, and share that information with your friends and
acquaintances.
There are two ways your calendar data may be
viewed by others: 1-to-1 sharing
and public access. For 1-to-1 calendar sharing, with
side-by-side appointment views, both you and your friend must be
subscribers to a Windows Live or MSN service. In this case, your
calendar is shared only with specific contacts; those contacts must
authenticate with a Microsoft Passport and you must give permission
to those contacts to view your calendar. For public
calendar access, any person with access to the Internet may
view your calendar if you decide to "publish" your
calendar to calendar.live.com/ your e-mail address.
Windows
Live and MSN Mobile
When you sign up for Windows Live or
MSN Mobile for your mobile phone or pager, Microsoft collects your
Passport member name (e-mail address), mobile alert preferences, and
other information about your mobile device necessary to provide the
service. Microsoft uses this information to operate the Windows Live
Mobile service and provide customer support to users when they need
help. If you signed up for Windows
Live Mobile at a co-branded site, your
carrier will also receive your personal information. You may
visit the Windows Live Mobile Web site at any time to view or change
your personal information.
Messenger
When you
sign up for the Messenger Service ("Service") through
Windows Messenger, Windows Live
Messenger, or MSN Messenger software, Microsoft requests your
e-mail address, a "friendly" name that you choose, a phone
number (optional), and the
list of "contacts" with whom you can send and receive
instant messages and similar information about those "contacts."
Your list of "contacts" and their information may also be
available to you from other Microsoft services. Go
to Tools --> Options in the Messenger software to change
your friendly name, phone number, or other information.
When
you communicate with other users through the Messenger Service or add
them to your contacts list, certain information will be shared with
those users. This information may include your e-mail address,
"friendly" name, presence state (e.g. whether you are
currently online or offline), image you have chosen as your user
tile, and IP address (in
cases involving a peer-to-peer communication).
Customer
Experience Improvement Program
The MSN Messenger and
Windows Live Messenger software may present you with the opportunity
to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program. This
program is designed to help improve Microsoft products and services.
If you choose to participate, you allow us to collect information
about how you use our software and services, as well as some
information about your computer. For example, this program collects
the time it takes you to sign-in, error messages that you might
encounter as you use the Service, whether each message reaches the
recipient, and what type of Internet connection you use. None of this
information will be used to
identify or contact you.
Your participation in the
Customer Experience Improvement
Program is completely
voluntary. To join:
1. Click the Tools menu on the
Messenger main window.
2. Click Options, and then click the
Privacy tab.
3. Select the check box labeled "Help us improve
Windows Live programs by allowing Microsoft to collect information
about your system, and how to use our software."
You can
cancel your participation at
any time by simply clearing the check box described in step 3
above.
Please note your decision to participate in the
Customer Experience Improvement Program does not affect the
collection of performance information about the Messenger service
that is necessary for the ongoing operation of the service.
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