What, Microsoft wants to give users more reasons to AVOID Microsoft products?
Isn't Internet Explorer crappy enough?
Haven't they lost enough respect in the world?
Is Microsoft deranged? Mentally unfit?
Microsoft has confirmed a report that it is looking into replacing cookies, which underpin the global online advertising business, with its own technology that would store all that valuable user information on Redmond's own servers. Sources within the company told AdAge that Redmond is in the early stages of developing a …
It's not for the special occasion when you really really must tell the world you like something!
No it to track you for adverts.. same as Google+, MSN, yahoo and a whole load of others. All of whom share data with the NSA, and that's without mentioning the ISPs who are tracking your every click-stream again for advertisements.
Maybe the answer is not to bitch about the evil profiling they've all been doing for years, but to lobby for a "cookie jar" option in HTTP, and allow us to choose if and where our cookies are stored.. it might be a cunning plan from intrusive advertisers, but it is also kinda nice if a travel site know where you live regardless of whether you're using a phone, tablet or PC
"Microsoft wants to give users more reasons to AVOID Microsoft products?"
You are right, however this is El Reg, NOT a representative sample of worldwide internet usage. Less clued-up users couldn't really care (or wouldn't even know) if some tracking data is being stored at MS. After all they are mostly happy enough with accepting cookies, ads etc.
If 100% of El Reg users didn't use MS, it would move MS user base by maybe a hundredth of a percentage point.
That might be true, but the literate technology users are the trend setters - they help other people set up machines, they work in IT departments, and they write reviews.
Granted there's enough apathy to go around, but it's not the only force - witness the collapse of IE's market share to Firefox and Chrome in the last 5 or 6 years. It takes some time for the market to move, but decisions like this will do nothing to boost Microsoft's dwindling influence on the internet.
Hmm, so MS hoarding and slurping your surfing data will give you (another) reason to avoid using MS? Howabout Android, Chrome, Google Search, and GMail then, all from a company who's raison d'etre, and considerable fortune, are built on exactly the same thing?
"Isn't Internet Explorer crappy enough?"
I guess you havn't used IE for a while. It's been the fastest browser on the market at release for the last 4 versions and is increasing it's market share...Not to mention IE has had far fewer security holes in recent versions than Chrome, Firefox or Safari....
what are these non-cookie based tracking things based on? It must be something that is close to a UIRI Universal Individidual Resource Identifier that gets tied to a users account on a machine. Another file to track or is the EEFI (sp?) going to be more toxic than it was intended to be ?
As for trusting any identifier based on something that is stored on BigCorp (tm) server, oh great. Misidentification galore once the spooks, rozzers and general do-gooders get loose tracking down the latest objects of persecution. To comply with local laws of course.
Do you not get pestered for a MS log-in when setting up Windows 8? My guess is this will become mandatory and one ID that MS can use to track you, and slurp your data to SkyDrive for better analysis.
As if we did not have enough reasons not to desire a move to Windows 8 already...
> To comply with local laws of course.
What? You don't want to know about paedophile terrorist pro-gun abusive husbands in your neighborhood who are likely to avoid thermally isolating their house and are against single mothers and the homeless as they demand austerity and demolition of needed quangos and state tentacles?
@JDX: Oh excuse me, I forgot that this is the magnificently benevolent and trustworthy Microsoft, that shining knight of the tech industry that saves puppies from fire-breathing dragons, not a belligerent corporate despot hell-bent on monopolising the entire industry.
So clearly I should just implicitly trust that they'll allow me full control of the data they harvest from me, and trust, with equal conviction, that they won't make backups, retain those backups for extended periods, gleefully pass my data on to the NSA (even under penalty of prosecution for violating an NSL), then ultimately sell-off my private bits for profit.
Because, you know, businesses aren't really interested in profit, especially not the profits required to cover the costs of the service they're offering, and especially not when that business is one as benevolent as Microsoft, as opposed to, say, a company with a four-decade history of anti-trust violations, extreme hostility, patent racketeering and clandestine behaviour. They're certainly not interested in staying in business, or moreover staying out of prison, by doing whatever the NSA tells them to, then keeping quiet about it like the nice gag order thingie tells them to.
So I humbly submit my unreserved apology for doubting your beloved Microsoft for even an instant, along with an invoice for payment, as per your instructions.
Love 'n Kisses,
Homer
I kind of like Bing. It seems a little less censored then Google, especially the image search. Google has that always-on semi safesearch thing now where if you search for an ambiguous term, like "cream pie", or even "pussy" they'll only show you the clean meaning unless you add other words to clarify. Whereas on Bing you get pictures of literal cream pies and cream filled vaginas all mixed together. Which is... interesting. But more importantly it's an honest result, just what I asked for, without trying to second guess what I "really meant".
Their related search suggestions are more interesting too, even if a few of them sound borderline illegal.
Let's see if I care, do I use:
Bing? No
IE? No
Windows Phone? No
Windows? Rarely
Guess I don't have to care about this.
You'd think they'd be trying to create a standard to be adopted, since the days of Microsoft being able to create something and have it become a defacto standard based on their control of the market are long past.
Well, no doubt any MS webserver will construct and forward suitable cookie-like data for your browser/ip/whatever combination, regardless of what you do. And if site-owners join in, they could add such capabilities to any web server, not just specific MS ones.
The decision on whether or not these new cookies might be constructed for you, stored elsewhere, and accessed by MS "partners", really needs have nothing to do with you at all. Maybe, if you are paranoid enough, you might make it hard to identify that browser/ip/etc combo with you uniquely ... but are you really planning to never use the web from home?
"Let's see if I care, do I use:
Bing? No
IE? No
Windows Phone? No
Windows? Rarely
Guess I don't have to care about this.
You'd think they'd be trying to create a standard to be adopted, since the days of Microsoft being able to create something and have it become a defacto standard based on their control of the market are long past."
Ah! Fanboi eh?
So you think Apple are any better?
Delphi's gateway certainly did bring in a number of ... shall we say ... less-productive contributors, but I don't think it was "long before AOL". A couple of sources suggest my recollection of some time in 1992 for the introduction of Delphi's gateway, and AOL ushered in Eternal September in '93.
Of course Usenet had suffered periodic waves of invasive newbies before. Besides normal month-long Septembers (when a new cohort of college students got access), there was for example the introduction of FidoNet gateways in the late '80s.
And many of the worst offenders of various sorts on Usenet had either traditional UUCP or newfangled NNTP access right to a node, rather than going through a gateway. That includes the first spammers (Thomas and Canter/Siegel), for example. They were Usenet residents rather than tourists, so to speak. But the tourists did track a lot of mud around the place.
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If this is the way they want to go then I honestly fear the worst has yet to come. Obviously this isn't the brightest of business models, and it makes me wonder if my recent jests about the "Underpants gnomes" may have actually been taken seriously by some beancounter... (nonsense of course, I hope ;)).
Honestly, it's a bit saddening that apparently some of the higher ups still seem to believe that Microsoft is in a position to dictate the world, just back in the days of Netscape. In a way I can see where this is coming from. After all; one division doesn't work closely with the other division, instead they're sometimes even heavily competing and will even cheer each other on if they managed to "defeat" the other department. Even if that would mean damaging them, because hey; they were the competitors right?
Sure. Too bad that everyone is forgetting that "they" were also your colleagues working in the same company. SO whatever gain, fame or profit you made is most likely partly used to cover parts of their losses. Oops...
Nah; HUGE victory.
This is no different. The Surface and Windows "divisions" can tell you exactly how well it goes when it comes to making your customers help adapt to your new products. Some people inside may even be able to tell you that it might have been a better idea to move on with the formula which may have been somewhat controversial from a Microsoft-user perspective (think Office Ribbons) but a formula which on the other hand actually managed to sell. Not merely selling because of a unavoidable need, but sells because the customer actually -wanted- that product.
But yeah; if the Internet divisions never got that memo, or worse yet: couldn't care less how bad their competitors are going, then this is the kind of bullshit you can expect. Not exactly the best kind of business model if you ask me; reinventing the wheel over and over isn't very profitable. Especially if the end result is something most people would rather avoid than embrace.
If MS doesn't wise up soon then I honestly fear the worst has yet to come, and it will most likely start somewhere next year. You do the math.
Why waste tens of kilobytes of disc space storing cookies when THE CLOUD can take the strain? Worried that you will not receive the correct marketing messages when out and about because the right cookies aren't on your device? Worry no more - THE CLOUD will help you, courtesy of Microsoft!
So ... like cookies, but Microsoft can see and control them, users can't necessarily delete or even view them, being on MS servers? I'll be rushing to implement that ...
For individual sites/domains you can already achieve this for free, with session state stored on your own servers. Presumably, this is all about sites sharing data across domains, outside the user's control - no thanks. I see the appeal there for advertisers, of course, but for users?
So Microsoft are "looking into it" and there's a great big article to detail this, which also mentions - almost as a throw-away remark - that Google and Amazon are already working on systems to the same effect... and yet the howls of outrage are directed almost solely at Microsoft.
I hope that in about 10-20 years time, when Google rules all our personal data, spams us with adverts we cannot block and sells our personal information to the NSA and any and all third-party clients who have enough money, that everyone remembers this.
It's not that I'm particularly pro-Microsoft, but I am definitely pro-competition. The fact that Microsoft recognise they need to shift their approach gets a thumbs-up from me, regardless of their past or how clumsy their approach. Competition, even if it comes from a source with a checkered past, is better than a new near-monopoly rising.
@RyokuMas: "Google and Amazon are already working on systems to the same effect... and yet the howls of outrage are directed almost solely at Microsoft."
I do know Google uses redirects in their search results that tells them what you find interesting. What else do Google and Amazon use in these systems to same effect?
Does anyone of us want our browsing data stored in Redmond's own servers or shared with third parties. I fail to understand how a company that hands over data to the NSA is in the business of "maintaining customer privacy". If they're not using cookies then I assume this replacement technology is using some kind of hidden web bugs. Personally I couldn't give a fig about the needs of businesses who rely on cookies. A much bigger priority and what I do care about is my rights to privacy, as such I will be opting out of any such system. There is a way of opting out isn't there. You did ask them?
Normal human beings have long been able to avoid using IE, especially legacy versions. Some corporate and government diehards seem to be fixated on IE for their own systems.
How many will welcome built-in super-cookies which call back to their Microsoft Overlords?