Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program

At Microsoft, we know that the best products are the ones our customers can use to their fullest potential. To design our products, we gather direct customer feedback by conducting usability tests, surveys, focus groups, and other types of field research.

However, hundreds of millions of people use Microsoft products, so it is impossible for us to contact most of our customers in person to get their feedback. The Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) was created to give all Microsoft customers the ability to contribute to the design and development of Microsoft products.

CEIP collects information about how you use Microsoft programs and about some of the problems you encounter. Microsoft uses this information to improve the products and features you use most often and to help solve problems. Participation in the program is strictly voluntary, and the end results are software improvements to better meet your needs. To learn more, read our FAQ.

How does CEIP work?
When you choose to participate, Windows automatically sends information to Microsoft about how you use certain products. Information from your computer is combined with other CEIP data to help Microsoft solve problems and to improve the products and features customers use most often.

Will CEIP collect information about all products on my computer?
No. CEIP only collects information about Microsoft products and you must choose to participate on a product-by-product basis.

Will I be contacted or receive spam if I participate?
No. No information collected by CEIP can be used to contact you. This means you will not be asked to participate in surveys or to read junk e-mail, and you will not be contacted in any other way.

Note: Microsoft is a member of the Anti-Spam Technical Alliance, an industry group that includes other companies such as AOL, Yahoo, EarthLink, Comcast, and British Telecom. This alliance is actively seeking to reduce unwanted e-mail messages.

More on Microsoft's anti-spam efforts can be found in this online progress report.

If I choose to participate, can I opt out later?
Yes. Most programs make CEIP options available from the Help menu, although for some products, you might need to check settings or options menus. You can choose to start or stop participating at any time.

Is the Customer Experience Improvement Program spyware?
No. Spyware can collect information or act on your computer without your full knowledge or consent. CEIP does not take actions other than those described in the privacy policy and you can choose to start or stop participating at any time.

Tip: If you are concerned about spyware, more information and tools for spyware removal are available at the Microsoft Security at Home spyware website.

Can I review the information before it is sent to Microsoft?
Unfortunately the information can't be reviewed for a couple of reasons:

•	The Customer Experience Improvement Program was designed to enable millions of customers to participate. To support such a large number of customers sending data, the collected information is recorded so that the Microsoft servers can efficiently process all the data. Due to the nature of this encoding, it would be difficult for most customers to review the information.
•	Applications which use CEIP typically send data to Microsoft servers after the application is closed. Rather than displaying a dialog when the application is trying to close to review the information and interrupting your work, the data is sent automatically.

For these reasons, the CEIP program limits the type of information that can be collected and how that information can be used. The privacy statement describes the type of information that can be collected and how Microsoft uses the information.

We recognize that some customers might be uncomfortable allowing the information collected by CEIP to be sent without having an opportunity to review it fully even though the information does not contain contact information and is governed by the privacy statement. If you are uncomfortable with sharing this information, please choose not to participate.

How does Microsoft protect my privacy if I choose to participate?
CEIP does not collect any information that can be used to contact you. More details are provided in the Customer Experience Improvement Program Privacy Policy.

If you choose to participate in CEIP for a product, you can also find information about privacy and data collection in the privacy policies for individual products.

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