Microsoft Ups Ante in Consumer Privacy Arena

In recent times, concerns about consumer privacy have dominated the security related concerns of web users as well as online companies. Microsoft took a step towards addressing these issues when it declared it was introducing newer measures to ensure online advertising and searches by individuals remained in the private domain.

Making this declaration, the software giant issued an appeal to other players in the Internet domain to lend their support to its initiative. However impassioned Microsoft may want its appeal to sound, it is not the first company to make such a declaration.

Rival software giant Google was the first to launch an initiative of this nature a while back. Google is the leading player in the online search domain today. It has received a lot of flak from pro-privacy advocates regarding the impact of fast-paced developments in search engine technology on the privacy of users.

According to the head of Microsoft’s privacy section, Peter Cullen, it was now time for the industry to adopt a common dialogue. The current state of the privacy policies of different companies often left the consumer more confused about privacy issues than they were when they started.

Microsoft said it aims to resolve issues such as these by making all searches on the Internet for relevant data disappear from the public eye after a period of 18 months. This policy would be implemented on its Live Search service. The user would have the option of storing the data beyond the official 18 months time frame.

Other steps Microsoft has announced it would make to ensure customer privacy is the move to store search data away from other people-related data, such as contact details. It will also take steps to prevent correlation of the different types of data. Besides, it will delete permanently cookies and other such data that can be used to identify users.

This issue is becoming another arena where Microsoft and Google are pitting themselves against each other, with one trying to outdo the other. While Google made the first moves in this direction, Microsoft’s customer privacy drive is being seen as more retroactive and directed to a worldwide audience.