Microsoft Live Messenger - Terms of use / agreement before installation

[mark.carline]

I am trying to persuade a couple of people I know to get onto Microsoft messenger ready for the xbox 360 dash update and one person said to me that they don’t want to install it due to something they read in the agreement that you read before you install it ( you know the one that most of us ignore and just click "Agree"). Apparently your agreeing to the fact that Microsoft can see the information on your PC after its been installed.

Anyone have a copy of the agreement / know what they are referring to ??

 

[mark.carline]

Think I have just found what they are talking about:

9. Privacy.
We consider your use of the service to be private. However, we may access or disclose information about you, your account and/or the content of your communications, in order to: (1) comply with the law or legal process served on us; (2) enforce and investigate potential violations of this contract; including use of this service to participate in, or facilitate, activities that violate the law; or (3) protect the rights, property, or safety of Microsoft, its employees, its customers or the public. You consent to the access and disclosures outlined in this section.
We may use technology or other means to protect the service, protect our customers, or stop you from breaching this contract. These means may include, for example, filtering to stop spam or increase security. These means may hinder or break your use of the service.
In order to provide you the service, we may collect certain information about service performance, your machine and your service use. We may automatically upload this information from your machine. This data will not personally identify you. You may read about this information collection in more detail in the privacy policy at http://privacy.microsoft.com.

More info here:

http://privacy.microsoft.com

Is this anything to be worried about ?

 

[Member 79251]

Do you read all terms and conditions ? credit cards, bank accounts and so on. You will mainly find out that they all have the same structure. If you have xp installed you have already agreed to this any way. So I would not be worried. Its just marketing stats, how many users, how many systems and so on. Its not your bank details.

 

[Steve.J.Davies]

I suppose it depends on exactly what 'certain information' covers.

 

[mark.carline]

Thanks for the comments.

I suppose it depends on exactly what 'certain information' covers.

I guess their line that says....

This data will not personally identify you.

means exactly what it says!

 

[KraGorn]

This data will not personally identify you.

Of course, that begs the question about what you means.

If the information is sufficient to identify a device to which I have sole use then ipso facto it identifies me for most practical purposes.

 

[Steve.J.Davies]

Of course, that begs the question about what you means.

If the information is sufficient to identify a device to which I have sole use then ipso facto it identifies me for most practical purposes.

Correct.
Information on your PC cannot 'personally' identify anyone. Even biometric signons can be beaten. that doesn't mean that it can't extract a huge amount of information, sell it to marketing companies, software companies, the government, anyone they like.
Attribute that information to an e-mail address/IP address that then leads to the ISP account holder.
It doesn't matter that it was 'Fred' who actually used the PC....


cookies.
Google searches
Red Sherrif et al


it is a jungle out there.