PrivacyChoice: Microsoft's Website is Worse at Protecting Your Privacy
Microsoft has launched an all-out assault on Google's privacy policies, but when it comes to protecting your privacy, Microsoft's Web site lags behind both Google and Apple, says the privacy organization PrivacyChoice.
PrivacyChoice rates Web sites on a scale of from 0 to 100, based on how well they protect visitors' privacy, with 0 being the worst, and 100 being the best. The group rates Microsoft's site at 79, behind Google at 85, and Apple at 89. You can check out the ratings of Web sites yourself, by visiting Privacyscore.com and typing in a Web site's address. You can also download a free Firefox add-in or Chrome extension that will give you ratings of sites as you visit them.
The scores are based on two primary criteria -- personal data policies, and tracking data policies, each of which has a maximum of 50 points. The personal data policies cover what the sites do with the data they gather about you, including whether it is shared with other companies, whether the site deletes your data when you terminate your account, whether you're told if another company requests your data, and whether the site has confirmed its privacy policies with a third party. The tracking policies cover whether there are ad networks and other "trackers" on the site that track what you do across multiple web sites.
