Privacy Concerns with Media Player

“** Windows Media Player Log Raises Privacy Questions

The newest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player keeps a
log of movies and music played by users, storing the information
in a database on users' hard drives, as well as sending data
back to Microsoft. Privacy advocates say the data could be
misused, but the company says it's merely providing popular
features.

The actions occur in Windows Media Player for Microsoft Windows
XP. When a user plays a CD or DVD movie, the program first makes
a note of what's being watched, writing to a small database stored on the computer's hard drive. The player then contacts a Microsoft Web server to download title information. At that time, the name of the movie being watched, as well as an ID number unique to that user, is stored on the Microsoft server.

Privacy advocates say that data could be used by Microsoft to
track users' media habits, creating profiles of individual
tastes and interests. "What's stopping a company who knows every
CD you've listened to and every DVD you've watched from saying,
'We're going to sell this now?' " says Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He also worries that the locally cached version of the log file could be read by other people or even subpoenaed as evidence in court. "Once you've created a database, people start to want it," he says. "It might be your marketing department, it might be the government."

Microsoft denies that the information is being misused in any way or even that it's paying attention to who's watching what,
saying it has no idea who's attached to each ID number. The
company says that storing the data lets users receive personalized content and richer features. "Under absolutely no
circumstances is personally identifiable information ever
transmitted to Microsoft as a result of DVD playback," says
David Caulton, lead product manager for Microsoft's Windows
digital media division. The data is not used for marketing, he
adds, though he didn't rule out the possibility that it could be
in the future. On Wednesday, the company revised its privacy
statement to explain that the logs are being maintained. Caulton
says users who remain concerned about privacy breaches can
operate the player in "work offline" mode or can set their
privacy level to "block all cookies." - David M. Ewalt

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Yes, that's "Block ALL Cookies". I wonder why there's an ID attached to this data at all unless they plan to use it later. And recall how Robert Bork's movie rentals were called into question during his Senate approval hearings...

Not Good.


"Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not after you!"

-Anon.”

“Thank you Tilt!

I will review this and look into how my puters are all set up!”

“Doesn't XP also report what M$ programs are on your hard drive? You can instal a file that keeps M$ XP from reporting. If I can find the source I'll post it.”

“TD, I think those guys are too sneaky for their own good!

Thanks Nigal. I haven't installed XP yet but that might be good to know...

I guess disk space will eventually become so cheap that MicroSquish will be able to save Everything about Everyone, LOL

Who *are* The Brain Police, anyway?”

“Any relation to the Dream Police?”

“What would you do if when you download
the CPU case is melting
and the monitor, too.
WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE???”

“I don't think so...”

“That's the Dream Police alright!”

“heh.. funny stuff.

As for XP, using NT here. Media Player does apply to my situation.. I will check into this.”

“This isn't new. All of microsoft's applications retain the last few programs accessed.”

“wouldn't you know it,,,,,I let our IT guys put XP on my laptop yesterday.”