New Microsoft campaign promotes privacy prowess

Microsoft has launched yet another privacy awareness campaign, but this time around, the company decided to focus more on its own privacy right-doings rather than Google's alleged wrongdoings. Declaring “ your privacy is our priority,” the campaign runs online, in print, and on TV, billing Microsoft as the “good guy” of online privacy and offering educational resources for those who want to better control what they share online.

In a blog post introducing the campaign, Microsoft quoted a consumer survey that found 85 percent of Americans are concerned about their online privacy, but "far fewer" take action. Ryan Gavin, Windows general manager, said, “While we don’t pretend to have all of the answers, we do want to help raise awareness for how you can have greater choice and control as you browse the web.”

The first video spot boasts about Internet Explorer's privacy protection features—including the fact that Do Not Track protection against advertising cookies is enabled by default—as part of the company’s efforts to better help you safeguard your privacy online.

Enabling the Do Not Track feature out of the box has been a controversial move for Microsoft. Some members of the Digital Advertising Alliance, as well as Yahoo, said they would not honor the Do Not Track setting now that it is set as the default in IE10—yet their decision not to respect the setting only helps Microsoft look like the “good guy” in the eyes of consumers. Other browsers (such as Google's Chrome) have a similar feature, but it’s not turned on by default.

“Very few of us believe that sharing some personal data online is a bad thing," Microsoft's Gavin added in the blog post. He noted that Internet users routinely provide information to websites and provide personal information for logons and purchases. Microsoft's point is that "at some point, we all draw a line where we are uncomfortable sharing more."

:story: PCWorld