Comments on: Comments on 6747

Post number 6747

mathowie — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 13:31:44 -0800

Do you use Hotmail for email? If so, it looks like Microsoft owns all your messages and can reprint or repurpose them however they like. I'd assume the ToS could be extended to cover any content on a passport-using website as well. Scary stuff, considering all the Hailstorm services on the way...

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 13:37:38 -0800

i use it for my junkmail, free porn messages that lead to mazes of java-pop-ups, and news... what if a diary or bloggish type service did the same thing?

By: o2b

o2b — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:18:44 -0800

does this mean they have someone regularly reading all the hotmail on the off chance that something worth grabbing is sent?

By: frykitty

frykitty — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:23:41 -0800

Didn't Yahoo try this a while ago and get thoroughly scathed for it?

By: CrazyUncleJoe

CrazyUncleJoe — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:24:23 -0800

AYEABTM? *ooch*

By: Steven Den Beste

Steven Den Beste — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:25:39 -0800

I think there's some confusion here. The new TOS applies to "Passport", not directly to Hotmail. Hotmail uses Passport for validation, but not for mail storage.

By: djc

djc — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:46:04 -0800

To clarify on that point Steven, the TOS applies to all Passport.com services, of which hotmail, msn, bcentral, etc all are classified. When, and its a when thing, Hailstorm hits, any site that that uses passport.com for authentication must abide by those TOS, and I would imagine, the end user thats using the passport.com service. I can't even begin to think of how this could affect Windows XP when that ships, since it's supposed to be hooked into passport.com(hailstorm, whatever) as well.

By: brantstrand

brantstrand — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 15:15:44 -0800

If you read the ToS in context and completely, it's pretty clear that what they're referring to is posts to forum-type sites, not interpersonal communications. This is boilerplate ToS stuff, and until I hear from an IP/(c) lawyer that the Passport stuff applies to Hotmail, I'll chalk all this up to more anti-MS knee jerk hysteria.

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 15:38:54 -0800

It's hardly knee-jerk when it applies to Microsoft. I just can't wait until my e-mail privacy provider allows for on the fly encryption. Then it doesn't matter that Hotmail has my e-mail in it... Microsoft can quote me saying "jfdsjh sda kug11adfgs sa4djhfsdj6hg ljkhusad4ffdvxcui saiusadg 8w dsuds0fuweqr kasd o87v ausiuidshgqw2jh aksjd38" all day long. I won't care.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 15:58:46 -0800

Microsoft's respone.

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 16:30:15 -0800

From their response... Pilla said Microsoft adheres to strict privacy policies by posting privacy statements on its site... They own the content. That's set-out in the ToS. So when they change their "privacy" policy (a la Amazon) to say that they will now allow themselves to do with the information as they please, they'll still be on the right side of the law, and on the wrong side of privacy.

By: redleaf

redleaf — Tue, 03 Apr 2001 21:39:08 -0800

So when they change their "privacy" policy (a la Amazon) to say that they will now allow themselves to do with the information as they please, they'll still be on the right side of the law, and on the wrong side of privacy. It's behavior like that that leads to regulation. And hopefully it happens sometime soon.

By: Tubes

Tubes — Wed, 04 Apr 2001 00:12:05 -0800

Nice try, CrazyUncleJoe, but this is a case of... All Your Bits Are Belong To Us.