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Published: August 2010

Congress should investigate Microsoft’s decision to undermine consumer privacy

Coalition: Privacy

Consumer Action joined in a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Rep. Henry Waxman and a Ranking Member of the committee, Rep. Joe Barton, requesting that they formally open an investigation into the decision-making process that led to a severe weakening of privacy protections in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Below is the full text of the letter:

The revelation of Microsoft’s complicity in an ad industry-involved effort to undermine privacy protection in the latest version of the Internet Explorer browser, covered in a front-page Wall Street Journal article on 2 August 2010, is sufficient grounds for a full committee investigation—of Microsoft’s decision in particular, and of online surveillance in general. Coupled with the other articles in the Journal’s recent exposé of online tracking and profiling—which revealed that the top 50 websites “installed a total of 3,180 tracking files on a test computer used to conduct the study”—Microsoft’s self-serving action is emblematic of the ad industry’s failure to enact meaningful self-regulation.

“Microsoft's decision reveals the economic forces driving the spread of online tracking of individuals,” the Wall Street Journal declared. The paper’s “investigation of the practice showed tracking to be pervasive and ever-more intrusive…. Because Internet Explorer is used by so many people—nearly 60% of all Web users—the 2008 decision by planners of the new version to make it easy for users to block tracking could have had a big effect on the marketplace.” Instead, the current version of the industry-standard browser requires users to turn on the feature that blocks tracking by websites—and to activate that setting every time they launch the browser.

The article makes clear, moreover, that both political and marketplace considerations played a prominent role in Microsoft’s decision. For not only were outside organizations, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Online Publishers' Association and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, invited to voice their concerns about the browser’s proposed privacy features, but “[s]ome Microsoft executives were concerned that the preset-privacy plan might jeopardize support among ad-industry organizations that Microsoft wanted to rally against a proposed advertising deal between Google and Yahoo Inc….”

While that particular deal was quashed, dozens of others have produced a highly concentrated online advertising marketplace—with more and more personal data falling into fewer and fewer hands—that demands congressional scrutiny.

Lead Organization

Center for Digital Democracy

More Information

"Microsoft Quashed Effort to Boost Online Privacy" by Nick Wingfield (as reported in the Wall Street Journal)

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