Hotmail Divulging Subscribers’ Data
Hotmail, Microsoft’s free e-mail service has been divulging subscribers’ e-mail addresses, cities and states to a public Internet directory site, Infospace, the Associated Press reported.
Infospace then combines the information with telephone numbers and home addresses. Once this information is in the directory, it can easily be obtained by advertisers, critics say.
Hotmail customers are automatically added to Infospace’s Internet White Pages directory unless they remove the check from a box in their registration form, Hotmail officials were quoted as saying.
Hotmail maintains it is s privacy policy states that Microsoft will not “sell, lease or rent” users’ e-mail. The Infospace arrangement doesn’t violate that because customers can choose whether or not they wish to be in the directory.
