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Where I come from, people who do things on the sly are trying to hide something.
   technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Internet Explorer scandal: It secretly spies on you and reports back to Microsoft


Aug. 30, 2000

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, The Syracuse Newspapers

   It's time to tell Microsoft to stop spying on us.
   Apparently Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson didn't scare enough respect for privacy into the company that makes the Windows PC operating system. Jackson has ruled that Microsoft exercised an illegal monopoly and must be broken up into smaller companies.
   But even a federal judge might find it hard to believe what Microsoft is doing now. It's recording your computer's unique identification number and sending it back to Microsoft's headquarters when you install the latest version of its Web browser, Internet Explorer.
   The number is your PC's GUID -- its Globally Unique ID (pronounced "gee you eye dee"). Windows creates this identifying number without asking you when you install any of Microsoft's operating systems. This means every PC running Windows has a GUID, and all GUIDs are unique. Web sites have no business collecting these ID numbers. They should be just as private as your credit card numbers or your bank account information.
   But it's not. It's another slice of your personal life that Microsoft can grab from you on the sly.
   I find this very disturbing for two reasons:
  • Microsoft has no right to spy on you this way.

  •    
    Your PC doesn't belong to Microsoft. It belongs to you. If Toyota built a secret camera into all its cars and instructed the cameras to take snapshots every few days so it could find out what you are doing with YOUR car, you'd be outraged. You should feel the same way about Microsoft's invasion of your privacy.
  • Microsoft is not being honest.

  •    
    Microsoft does not ask you if it can collect this information. It just goes ahead and does it behind your back. There is only one reason Microsoft would be sneaky about this: It knows you and I would refuse to go along with it. Where I come from, people who do things on the sly are trying to hide something.

   Here's what Microsoft does:
   When you install Microsoft's latest Web browser, Internet Explorer 5, the browser creates a permanent cookie -- a small "note" that can be read by a Web site -- and puts it in the Windows cookie folder. The cookie contains your computer's globally unique ID.
   The first time you run it, Internet Explorer automatically connects to a so-called "Welcome" page on a Microsoft Web site. This is the kind of "welcome" that the spider sends to the fly. Instead of "welcoming" you, the Microsoft Web site takes the hidden cookie and stores it so that Microsoft can do whatever it wants with that information later.
   Note that this behavior cannot be controlled. Internet Explorer "phones home" no matter what you do to its configuration. The only way you can keep it from giving away your private information is to block all access to the Internet the first time Internet Explorer runs. (In other words, you'd have to unplug the phone line from the modem or disconnect your cable modem if you have a cable Internet connection.)
   You'd also have to manually change the start page after Internet Explorer runs for the first time (though "Internet Options") to keep Internet Explorer from trying to go to the bogus "Welcome Page" again.
   Microsoft insists that it's not doing anything wrong. Let's look at it this way: If Microsoft was doing something right, it wouldn't be doing it behind your back. I'd much rather be my own judge of what's right and wrong.
   One more thing. Normally when I write about bad software, I advise you to use another program. But this is not bad software. It's bad ethics. I don't have a software solution. That's a sad commentary on the state of modern computing. If you must use Windows, you should be aware of how little your privacy counts to the company that makes your software.