http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB1043436716535021744,00.html
The New York Times January 27, 2003 EU Privacy Authorities Seek Changes in Microsoft 'Passport' By BRANDON MITCHENER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BRUSSELS -- European privacy authorities this week will outline changes it wants Microsoft Corp. to make to its Passport online authentication system to settle a yearlong investigation of its privacy policies, according to people familiar with the situation. The recommendations, some of which Microsoft is said to have advanced itself in the course of discussions with European authorities, would also target Microsoft's rivals in the so-called Liberty Alliance, which includes Sun Microsystems Inc. and several other multinational companies. The proposed changes would go beyond those to which Microsoft consented last year following a complaint by a nonprofit group to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that the company was making improper use of people's data. Passport allows users who have registered with the service to enter data such as an e-mail address and a password just once and use that digital "passport" to enter other Web sites without re-entering the same data or creating a new password. Microsoft has insisted that Passport complies with European data-protection rules, but European privacy authorities last year said the system raised "legal issues," including the "value and quality of the consent given" by users and the "security risks associated" with the transfer of their data to Passport's partners. European data-protection commissioners are expected to discuss the recommendations Wednesday. A spokesman for the chairman of the working group declined to comment on its deliberations, as did a spokeswoman for Microsoft. People familiar with the privacy authorities' thinking say the changes they plan to request give users more information about the system and more control over how their data are used. "Microsoft has accepted to make major changes," said one person familiar with the group's thinking. The group is scheduled to meet the day before Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates addresses a conference on Microsoft's Internet strategy in Brussels. The EU privacy probe is unrelated to an antitrust investigation by the European Commission, which has accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the market for operating systems for desktop computers to muscle its way into related product markets. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]