News
Microsoft Agrees to Beef up Privacy Protections in Passport
- By Scott Bekker
- 01/30/2003
Microsoft .NET Passport users will get better privacy protection, due to an agreement between European Union regulators and Microsoft.
Although the deal, arrived at after eight months of negotiations, results from EU privacy laws, anyone can take advantage of it because the Passport service doesn't verify where users live, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will give EU residents more information about their privacy rights under EU law. The company will also give users more control over how their information is shared with third parties. Specifically, the users will have the ability to go through .NET Passport partner sites one by one and select how much personal information they want to share with each site.
Microsoft will also add a tool warning users if they've selected insecure passwords.
The changes must be phased into the service over the next 2-18 months.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.