Snowden, the NSA, eavesdropping, data collection, hacking, government spying: all common keywords used daily in today’s media. If this doesn’t sound familiar to you, perhaps you’ve been spending time on a remote desert island. For the rest of us, we can’t turn the TV on or flip to a news site without hearing about government leaks, congressional hearings, or talk of the NSA or some other official agency possibly spying on the public. For that reason, and perhaps now more than ever, companies are professing their intent to protect the privacy of those whose data they are charged with protecting. Microsoft is no different.
Security Concerns
There has been some concern regarding security within Microsoft’s own products, particularly with the Xbox Kinect, which is equipped with a motion-tracking capable video camera and voice recognition. Updated privacy statements by Microsoft added to the concern, stating, "We may monitor these communications to the extent permitted by law." However, the statement continued, "we cannot monitor the entire Services and make no attempt to do so." There was also a warning regarding the possibility of others recording communications sent through the device.
At the annual shareholder meeting on November 19, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith addressed a shareholder’s question regarding those concerns.
"We all want to live in a country and a world that's safe and secure, but it is a business imperative that we retain the customers' trust in every country around the world. We're focused on engineering improvements that will further strengthen security including strengthening security against snooping by governments," Smith said. "We take a lot of pride at Microsoft about the care we take to respect the privacy concerns of our customers. Across our industry there are some [who] seem rather bent on trying to use every single piece of personal information they can get so they can target you with more ads."
Looking Forward
The remainder of the shareholder meeting was geared in a more positive note. Steve Ballmer said, “Last year at this meeting, I talked about the fundamental shift underway at Microsoft, from a company that expresses its software creativity directly in software, to a company that expresses its creativity in software through a family of devices and services.”
“Our leadership team and the board of directors have spent a lot of time over the past year working on this strategy, and honing a differentiated point of view in terms of the high-value experiences that we really can bring to life that make people more productive, that make businesses more productive, and make people really want to have fun and be able to do it in unique ways.”
