Getting a Passport to Microsoft Country

Using MSN Explorer is only one reason to get a Microsoft Passport. These days, Microsoft requires the use of the Passport to use several of their sites and services, including MSN Calendar, MSN Messenger, MSN Communities, MSN Wallet, and more. If you already have a Hotmail or MSN email address, you already have a Passport. If not, you can get a Microsoft Passport simply by signing up for a free Hotmail address at www.hotmail.com. Parents may be comforted to learn that a Kids Passport is also available, which can help parents protect the online identity of their children.

However, some might be understandably concerned that Passport is yet another way Microsoft is trying to invade our space and privacy to increase its profits. You can minimize the effect by entering the bare minimum of personal information when you sign up for a Passport. We were able to sign up using a single letter for a first name and last name. You also must enter a birth year and a ZIP code, but the Microsoft stormtroopers are not going to knock down your door in the middle of the night if you don't enter it truthfully. Personally, I'd avoid using Microsoft WalletI just don't want my credit card information floating around, regardless of how secure Microsoft says it is.

Hey, Who's Afraid of Microsoft Passport?

The Microsoft Passport is a simple way of making it easy to sign on and purchase items and services from a growing number of sites affiliated with (read "owned by") Microsoft. Because people are so darned tired of having to remember tens of passwords (maybe even hundreds if you're a Web addict like me), the idea of using a simple MS Passport that stores your username, password, credit card, info, and so forth, and promises to effortlessly log you on to all kinds of Web sites and services might sound pretty alluring. I mean, I forget my passwords all the time, don't you? In fact, I keep a Notepad file on my computer of nothing but my passwords and other such stuff. If I don't have access to this file when I'm traveling and I want to, say, purchase a plane ticket, I'm out of luck, because I can't remember how to log in to Travelocity. (Of course, I keep this file in an encrypted file folder running under Windows XP, so it's not going to be easy for someone to liquidate my IRA. After the "substantial penalty for early withdrawal," it's not going to amount to that much anyway!)

But I'll suggest to you that Passport isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, it's a lot less. In fact, if you were concerned about cookies, you'll really be scared of Passport. As mentioned earlier, there are these things called cookies, which are small text files stored locally on your computer used to store a bit of info about you. When you go to a Web site that uses cookies, the Web server and your computer agree to exchange a little information, based on what you do on the Web site. Suppose you set up an account at Jack's Pizza with your name and address, or just that you like pepperoni pizza. Only the information you give to that site, along with possibly when you viewed the site, what you purchased, and what server you were coming in from, will be stored in the cookie. The idea is to make it easier for the site to recognize you the next time you visit. This is why you can go to some sites and the Web page says "Hi Karen!" It simply looks in your cookie directory on your hard disk (the cookie jar) and looks for the one it stored there. It opens the cookie, and sees that your name is Karen (because you typed that into its site the last time you visited), and then displays it. It also knows that last time, you bought an extra-large pepperoni pizza and a bag of fries. This time it automatically suggests an extra-large pepperoni pizza and fries. Neat. Convenient. It's like going into your favorite restaurant, and the waiter knows what you like.

The important point to remember is this: The agreement is that this information is transacted only between you and the Web site you're visiting. You have some privacy of information. Jack's Pizza's Web server is not talking to Jill's Soda Pop Company's Web server and then generating email to you trying to sell you a soda to wash your pizza down with. (Okay, so maybe you want a soda with your pizza, so not a bad idea. But it can get out of hand. Keep reading.)

The idea of Passport is totally different. Although it contends otherwise, I don't think Microsoft is just trying to offer a better user experience on the Web by offering you a Passport to keep your passwords and stuff all tidy. With Passport, you sign on in one place, essentially Microsoft, even if you're clicking the Sign in Through Passport link on your favorite Web site. Really, you're signing in at Microsoft's Passport, which in turn links you back to the site you wanted. Then you start hopping around between sites. Although most of the Passport sites are now MS sites like Hotmail, they hope to entice other vendors to become Passport enabled. (With any luck on Microsoft's site, Jack and Jill will both fall down this slippery slope.) When that happens, the Web servers are linked to one another. Garnering lots of valuable customer information (such as your buying patterns, net worth, geographical location, age, sex, hobbies, medical history, and other such private info) can be more and more easily aggregated into one large database. Do you think that kind of information is valuable? You bet it is, and Microsoft knows it!

Let's consider some examples. Log in to Microsoft's Investor site (http://www.investor.com) and look in the upper-right corner. There's a logon button for Passport. Now, I'm not saying this is happening now, but it's possible. Suppose you're buying a house, refinancing your current one, or buying a new car through a Passport-affiliated site. It is possible using today's technology that the selling agent can determine your net worth by checking your portfolio on Investor.com and bargain harder with you. This kind of thing actually happened with Amazon, which raised its prices on DVDs for people who regularly bought DVDs from them. The practice was based only on cookies (and was stopped, by the way, after customers discovered what was going on).

If you want to read that story, here's a brief quote and URL: "Amazon customers on DVD Talk reported that certain DVDs had three different prices, depending on which so-called cookie a customer received from Amazon." http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2703210.html?tag=st.ne.1002.tgif.ni.

But in essence, the idea of cookies being private is being circumnavigated by the Passport. What's particularly scary about all this is that there is one entry point (or gatekeeper) to all Passport sitesMicrosoft. Over time, look to see more and more sites (and even IE itself) incorporating Passport. I think we should be wary of the aggregation of information about us, and allowing that information to be passed around freely between corporations. Even umpteen-page-long privacy statements can't protect you when a Web company goes bankrupt and the court orders sale of its valuable database with your buying patterns or other private information in it.