Microsoft Attacks Google Over Recent Privacy Changes

Microsoft is the latest to join in the debate about Google and their recent changes to their privacy policy. Recently, Google announced they will be making changes to their privacy policy and consolidating all of the privacy policies across their slew of products, into one single privacy policy.

This raised a lot of concerns as some of the things it would allow is to take your search history and use it on other products, which would allow advertisers to retarget users across different products. The company has come out about the changes and even sent a letter to Congress explaining things.

Via Informationweek:

“The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information,” said Microsoft chief spokesman Frank Shaw, in a blog entry Wednesday. “We take a different approach–we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both.”

“Shaw said that, in contrast to some versions of Google’s products, Microsoft services like Hotmail and Office 365 don’t serve up user information to advertisers. He also touted Internet Explorer’s built-in tracking protection feature. To further emphasize the point, Microsoft is running an ad in major newspapers this week that says the company is “Putting People First.”

In the ad, they say the privacy changes are cloaked in comfortable language, language that makes it seem like Google has users’ best interest at heart when in all actuality, they’re making it easier for them to connect the dots between everything you do while using any of their services.

Have you looked at Google’s new privacy policy? Do you think Microsoft is fair in their statement?