What does Microsoft do with my contacts list?

Hi,

I understand the importance of you query. Please get in touch with the Microsoft Privacy Response Center who would be able to assist you.

Thank you.

Dear Sir:

With as much respect as I can muster, I say to you that you need further education in proper Customer Care.

Do you have any idea how many hours I have devoted to this issue already?

You should,, because of the amount of detail that I have already posted.

Secondly, if I am to go to another section of the "Building" to receive answers AFTER I go through this whole process of explaining again, how do you expect others who have been watching this thread to find out what the answer is?

You expect ME to come back here and post the answer I receive from whomever in another section?

No sir, I would submit to you that it is somebody at the Microsoft Privacy Response Center that should come to this part of the "Building" to answer the question.

And as I have stated I think you need further education in Customer Care, let me offer a lesson here.

Thera is a cynicism about Customer Care at Internet-based companies, aka Customer Support, and because this cynicism has been around and grown while many of you were attending classes at college you also share that cynicism and have now become part of the problem.

Possibly you are following some sort of a checklist that indicated to you that the best answer here was to shuttle me off to another section, but I don't think that is very polite.

We always hear support personnel complain that customers don't do their homework before bothering support personnel, but I have spent hours, literally hours, searching for the answers to the questions I am asking here and now you want me to go to a new section and start my explanations all over again?

The really sad part in all this is that you are probably quite sincere in that request you have made of me.

Like I wrote, you need further training.

Sir, if you think somebody at the Microsoft Privacy Response Center has the proper training to answer my questions, please ask them to come here.

Thank you.

Regards,

HFM47

EDIT:  I find this that I see in my Inbox under the notice of the recently submitted response by a company employee:

NEXT STEPS*

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What I find so interesting is that sentence with the special ending punctuation that asks me to let the community know.

Well, that is exactly what I wish to do, let the community know what the answers are.  And I hope somebody notices that I keep using the plural form.

**Edited to remove active links - David**

I don't understand what is going through the minds of the employees that have seen this thread and haven't posted so much as a "We are looking for answers. Please wait.", but I am beginning to sense that we are once again viewing a situation where obfuscation will be used by the company to try and see if the questioner is going to give up.

Let me make something very clear, I will not give up.

If this has to go to snail mail and even if this has to be brought before law enforcement, I will get some answers.

I want to know what this company does with a person's contact list.  It's an easy question, unless you have something to hide.

For the time being I am confining my research to the Net, and so far I find that not too many people ask Microsoft why they warn us about being able to view our contact list.

Here is what Research Paper No. 2 contains:

• I suppose I should apologize because I wasn't using the Bing search engine, but you will see below that I tried various search methods.

Paper #2:

When I entered this  _ "contact list" "security" site:microsoft.com

This below caught my eye and became Research Paper No. 1, because I copied it.

http://www.microsoft.com/online/legal/v2/?docid=34

Then I tried this in a search engine _ "View your profile info and contact list" site:microsoft.com

I found this below, which was just one of two results.  The other being from 2013.  This one below was much more useful because I see a company employee responded and it seems that company employee is still with the company.

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/onedrive/en-US/f00e7b47-fb0b-468f-ba6b-6e9efcd82537/how-to-skip-the-tcs-process-with-liveid-authentication?forum=messengerconnect

This is by design. Users need to know that they are granting your application permission to view some of their data.

Carl Hirschman

Wednesday, April 02, 2014 5:59 PM

Then I tried this in the Google search engine and received the following result:

No results found for "View your profile info and contact list" site:http://answers.microsoft.com.

Results for View your profile info and contact list site:http://answers.microsoft.com (without quotes):

So I continue to search and will stick with this thread for answers for about another week or so.  Then I turn to other methods.

And for those that might view me as a pest, I have a few words about that.

Security starts with common sense and when someone, no matter who that 'someone' is, warns me about something it is common sense to ask why the warning.

Now, of course, my email account is on a Microsoft server, so any employee could look at my contact list, whether that is legal or not.  I just have to take it on faith that Microsoft management has that under control.

But I see an actual warning about the company being able to view my contact list and I have to ask why.  That is common sense, no?

Plus, it has to do with respect.  My respect for the people on/in my contact list.  Do I just let any company view it without asking why?  No, that would not be very respectful.

And while we are on the subject of respect, I'd like a little respect aimed in my direction from some employee at this company.  That is, I'd like some answers.  And it is more than one answer that needs to be forthcoming from this company.

Please don't force me into going brick-and-mortar to get answers.  That gets expensive.

Thank you very much, Vinodh.V, but I have further questions and the first comes from the page you gave me the link for.

I see this under "How We Collect Data".

Microsoft takes measures designed to prevent the collection of email addresses and passwords, and numeric sequences such as phone numbers and credit card numbers.

Quite frankly, that mystifies me.  Your company clearly indicates -- see below -- that they collect data from our contact list.  That is collecting email addresses.

So let me now explain the steps I took to the point where I saw the information that your company wanted to collect data from my contacts list.

I started at this page: 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about?ocid=WIN10_0_WOL_Hero_Home_Windows-10_Null_01

Free Upgrade Offer

Great news! We will offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified new or existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year!*  And even better: once a qualified Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it up to date for the supported lifetime of the device, keeping it more secure, and introducing new features and functionality over time – for no additional charge. Sign up with your email today, and we will send you more information about Windows 10 and the upgrade offer in the coming months.

So after clicking on the "Sign up for email"

And have signed in to your email account one gets this page:

https://account.live.com/Consent/Update?ru=https://login.live.com/oauth20_authorize.srf%3flc%3d1033%26client_id%

... truncated ...

&rd=winpreview.catalysis.com&scope=wl.signin+wl.emails+wl.basic

And then we see:

• Let this app access your info?

winpreview.catalysis.com

• Windows Preview needs your permission to:
• Sign in automatically

Signing in with your Microsoft account will automatically sign you in to this app.

• Access your email addresses

Windows Preview will be able to see the email addresses in your profile.

• View your profile info and contact list

Windows Preview will be able to see your profile info, including your name, gender, display picture, contacts, and friends.

That can't be any clearer.  Microsoft is stating they will be able to view my contact list.

So I am asking again for specific information about what Microsoft wants to do with my Contact List.

Is the answer, Nothing?

I would like to see some clear language that assures me, and anyone else reading this and interested, that Microsoft will not be using the Contact List for anything at all.  Maybe it is just collected because they don't use a filter.  EXCEPT how does this all fit in with that information about not wanting to collect email addresses.

One more thing, please -- "Let this app" -- WHAT APP?  There is nothing on that first page under Free Upgrade Offer about any app.

It all appears quite benign:

Sign up with your email today, and we will send you more information about Windows 10 and the upgrade offer in the coming months.

Nothing about an 'app' or about needing to collect all sorts of personal information.  Just an offer to send email information.  But, in fact, it is a program designed to collect information, isn't it?  it is an 'app' and that tends to make simple folk, like me, suspicious.  And planting the seeds of suspicion is bad for business.

Hi,

Thank you for your interest in Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Please refer to the below article which will give you a detailed information about all your questions:

https://insider.windows.com/Home/PrivacyStatement#section_1

Hope this information helps, please revert for further assistance.