The Hindu Business Line : Microsoft now redefines trustworthy computing

The Microsoft Chairman, Mr William Gates III, has chutzpah....but what does that have to do with you and me? Plenty, if you are using Hotmail. Have you noticed that the spam in your Hotmail account has been going up steadily in the last few months?

That's because those clever folks who have made MSN into a juggernaut have added two tiny little boxes to your profile, which, if ticked, give other people the right to see your personal information and share the information!

The only thing is that the MSN people kind of forgot to tell you about these little boxes. And they are ticked.

Caveat emptor, right? So what you do is log into your Hotmail account, get into `Options' and then `Personal Profile' and scroll right down to the bottom of the page. You'll find the little boxes — most helpfully ticked. Remove the tick marks and click on `Update' and, if all goes well, you just might experience a decline in the spam.

While you are about it, you might as well check out the .NET Passport privacy policy which says: ``.NET Passport helps protect your privacy by letting you decide when to share personal information in your .NET Passport profile — except as explained in the .NET Passport Privacy Statement. In general:

.NET Passport shares your profile information with the .NET Passport site or service where you registered.

After you have registered, .NET Passport shares the personal information in your .NET Passport profile only when you have given consent.

You indicate what information to share — such as your e-mail address — on the .NET Passport Registration form, or in your .NET Passport profile following registration.''

All this sounds just fine. The problem is: Can you remember being asked by Hotmail whether you want to share your personal information? The chances are that you don't.

There are two amusing aspects to all this. On January 15 last, Mr Bill Gates sent an e-mail to `Microsoft and all Subsidiaries' with `Trustworthy Computing' as the subject. In his e-mail, Mr Gates stressed the company's intent to shift its focus from features to security and privacy.

``When we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security. Our products should emphasise security right out of the box,'' he said in his e-mail. He added, ``it should be easy for users to specify appropriate use of their information, including controlling the use of e-mail they send.''

And now for the second amusing aspect. Microsoft has made it known to certain sections of the media in the US that it has figured out a better way of filtering out junk e-mail and that it will cost its customers at least $10 a month to use the technology!

The grapevine is that the company is introducing an ``advanced filtering system'' as a key feature of MSN 8, the new version of its Internet service billed for release around October.

First you get them spammed them. Then you bill them for weeding out the spam. Way to go, `Bill' Gates!

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