Privacy Progress
Published: May 25, 2005 | Updated: April 21, 2006
Microsoft commits significant resources toward enhancing privacy protection, both in terms of the software, services, and products we offer our customers to help them manage the privacy of their information, as well as how we do business. As a result, privacy has been woven into the culture at Microsoft as an automatic priority in every area of the company. Our efforts to help our customers safeguard their information are focused around three key areas: technology investments, partnership and collaboration, and customer guidance and engagement.
On This Page
Technology Investments
We understand that our customers expect us to provide tools to help them protect themselves. As a result, Microsoft prioritizes the development of technologies that feature privacy-enhancing tools or services to help protect our customers and their information. Some recent examples of privacy-enhancing technology include:
| • | Windows Defender.
Microsoft's antispyware tool improves Internet browsing safety by helping guard against spyware and removing spyware packages already on a computer. It is the most popular Microsoft download.
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| • | Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Microsoft has made new security and privacy enhancements in Windows XP SP2 to help better safeguard computers from hackers, viruses, and other online threats.
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| • | Fighting spam and filtering content.
Building off the recent Sybari Software acquisition and collaborating with Microsoft Research, MSN, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange Server, and other internal groups, the Antispam Technology and Strategy Group helps to integrate new spam-fighting technologies such as SmartScreen into Microsoft software and services such as MSN, MSN Hotmail, Office 2003, and Exchange Server 2003. More than 3 billion spam e-mails are blocked daily through this technology.
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| • | Microsoft Phishing Filter
The Microsoft anti-phishing add-in in Hotmail and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 is designed to warn people of potentially suspicious Web sites and help them make more informed choices about whether to provide personal information online.
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| • | Rights management.
Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) is a new policy-enforcement technology that allows you to protect content at the file level. This file-level protection is always enforced, regardless of where the file goes.
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| • | MSN.
Advanced technology across the MSN network and communication services—MSN Parental Controls, Pop-Up Guard, Junk E-mail Guard—help protect customers from online threats, including spam and viruses.
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| • | Sender ID.
Sender ID is a new spam-fighting standard and initiative from AOL, Yahoo!, EarthLink, Comcast, British Telecom, and Microsoft. Sender ID combats a specific type of e-mail forgery known as domain spoofing, which falsifies header information to make a message appear to be from a legitimate sender.
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| • | Privacy tools for removing unwanted software.
The Microsoft Office Remove Hidden Data add-in allows users to remove personal or hidden data that might not be immediately apparent when a document is viewed. This technology can be run on one or many files created with Office XP or Office 2003.
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Partnership and Collaboration
Microsoft recognizes that sharing our knowledge, learning from others, and collaborating with industry partners at every stage helps to make each successive link of the chain stronger. As such, we invest in many types of organizations and partnerships. For example:
Internet safety enforcement. Microsoft collaborates with law enforcement and government organizations worldwide to protect Internet users. Some recent examples:
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On August 22, 2005, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa announced the arrest of Jayson Harris, the "MSN Billing" phisher who orchestrated a phishing scheme using a fake Microsoft Web site. This was the first civil case filed by Microsoft related to phishing.
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In March 2005, Microsoft filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle against 117 "John Doe" operators of phishing sites.
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On August 9, 2005, Microsoft announced it had reached a $7 million settlement with former self-proclaimed "Spam King" Scott Richter.
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Microsoft contributed to the investigation leading to the filing of seven antispam enforcement lawsuits by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against companies that hire others to send illegal pornographic spam.
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Microsoft has supported more than 135 legal actions against spammers worldwide, including filing 86 lawsuits in the United States. From these lawsuits, more than US$184 million in judgments have been awarded.
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Privacy standard advocacy. Microsoft has taken the lead in unifying privacy legislation in the United States. Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith spoke before the U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus in November 2005 to advocate for a single federal privacy legislation that would better align U.S. protections with those offered by countries around the world.
Internal privacy processes. Microsoft has worked hard to formalize privacy as a critical component of our everyday work. Processes and practices in place include:
| • | Microsoft Privacy Standard for Development.
Based on the Microsoft Privacy Policy, this standard provides a set of rules and guidelines for the development and deployment of all Microsoft consumer software, enterprise software, and Web services.
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| • | PoliCheck 4.0.
Microsoft upgraded this content-scanning tool designed primarily to search for sensitive geopolitical terms, profanity, and trademarked terms in Microsoft software. PoliCheck reviews content by scanning more than 100 file formats, including system registry files and Web sites.
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| • | CheckPoint Express.
A new version includes updates to privacy requirements, one of several requirements each product must meet before it can be shipped.
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| • | Microsoft Privacy 101.
This training provides relevant, useful content to Microsoft employees by profiling them by business line, functional group, and role. The profile information is used to provide customized training that focuses on privacy considerations most relevant to each employee's work.
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| • | Trustworthy Computing Request for Proposal (RFP).
Creation of this academic program will fund a variety of academic projects to introduce the fundamentals of Trustworthy Computing into technical and business curricula.
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| • | Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board.
The board was formed to advise Microsoft with respect to security, privacy, and reliability enhancements in Microsoft technologies.
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| • | TRUSTe
provides the leading global seal dedicated to building trust and confidence in online transactions. We support TRUSTe as both a leading sponsor and as a global licensee.
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| • | The Global Infrastructure Alliance.
Microsoft is a part of this working group, which is designed to drive a more secure Internet environment for worldwide consumers. GIAIS covers 60 percent of the world's Internet subscribers.
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Customer Guidance and Engagement
Microsoft privacy technologies work best when customers have the knowledge and guidance they need to use them most effectively. We aim to improve our customers' roles and partnership experiences through education, customer collaboration, and engagement.
| • | MSN Protect Your Privacy Online.
This Web site helps users learn how to maintain control of their information, how criminals can invade their privacy, and what they can do to protect themselves
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| • | Security at Home.
The Web site is dedicated to helping users obtain support for security-related issues such as viruses and security updates.
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| • | Shorter privacy notice. Provides customers with a clear and essential one-page summary of Microsoft's online privacy practices. This shortened form of the privacy notice conforms to all regulatory requirements and provides links to full legal statements and other relevant information.
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Education and information outreach. Microsoft is involved with numerous public education efforts around the world. Some examples:
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Microsoft partnered with the FTC and the National Consumers League to promote awareness of phishing scams at an event in Washington, D.C., that coincided with Microsoft's filing of 119 civil lawsuits against phishers worldwide.
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We supported the FTC in its development of a new consumer Web site, www.OnGuardOnline.gov, that provides information about online safety and security.
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Microsoft works closely with the National Cyber Security Alliance to promote Internet safety, particularly during National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October.
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We joined forces with others in business, industry, and government to support Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) as it launched its Take Back the Net tour in Tampa, Florida. Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist was the keynote speaker at this event.
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| • | A Guide to Privacy at Microsoft.
Microsoft's view of Privacy through an explanation of its technology innovations, internal practices and procedures, consumer guidance, and its industry leadership and cooperation
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| • | Enterprise Engineering Center.
This resource enables customers to deploy and test Microsoft solutions in a re-creation of their heterogeneous environment. Microsoft developers are teamed with customers to ensure proper configuration and address issues that arise in the moment.
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| • | Worldwide education campaign.
We're working on a worldwide education campaign with computer manufacturers, retailers, Internet service providers, and other partners to keep IT professionals current with best practices in computer health and protection, and how to make protection technologies easier to enable.
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