Microsoft ad campaign savages Google over privacy
Microsoft is launching a three-day advertising campaign in the US, offering itself as the privacy-respecting alternative to Google.
Last week Google decided to pool personal user information across 60 of its products with no opt out available to users. The ad campaign’s slogan is: “Putting people first” [JPG here].
“Every data point Google collects and connects to you increases how valuable you are to an advertiser,” the campaign notes. In fact, so does everyone else, something Microsoft acknowledges in the ad copy:
To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve the quality of an advertising product. But that effort needs to be with continuing to the needs and interests of users.
“The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information,” writes Microsoft’s chief spinmeister Frank X Shaw, on the company’s blog.
Microsoft makes hay
Google has responded to Congress’s concerns about the data-sharing policy by claiming the changes had been “misunderstood”. We analysed that here yesterday. It’s worth comparing Google’s explanation with the caveats. ®
Bootnote
Readers with long memories will remember how Microsoft was once seen as the creepy data-mining uberlord – not so long ago.
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/01/ms_attack_ads_google_privacy/