Given how the two companies are forcing their respective user name and authentication schemes down people's throats, it doesn't surprise me that consumers are choking on them. And given that consumers have a hard enough time trusting the Internet as a whole, I can certainly understand why they're unwilling to trust AOL and Microsoft.
What I don't understand is why these same consumers are so willing to trust their banks and other financial services companies with the same personal information. According to Gartner, 47 percent of consumers surveyed said they would trust banks to handle e-wallet services safely. Only 12 percent said the same thing about Microsoft.
That makes no sense to me. I think that if people really knew about all the security gaps and gaffes that financial services companies routinely hide, they'd either find it easier to trust Microsoft and AOL (like I do), or they wouldn't trust anyone (also a reasonable response).
Identity theft is largely a by-product of the casual ways financial services companies now handle information and transactions -- the way they promote the use of Social Security numbers as universal IDs, for example, and hand out credit cards like popcorn. I find such lapses much more troubling than worms and viruses. Sure, having a worm trash your email is a pain. But at least I can buy software to protect myself.
Yet financial services companies hardly take a hit for their complicity in identity theft. It's just considered the work of criminal minds doing what criminal minds will do. Why isn't Microsoft similarly seen as the victim of criminal hackers?
A year ago, when Microsoft first introduced its .Net My Services (then code-named Hailstorm), I asked Bill Gates if he was concerned that people might be unwilling to entrust their personal data to a company that has yet to solve security holes in a Web browser.
At the time, he didn't seem to understand why I'd ask such a question. His trustworthy computing initiative suggests he understands now: people don't trust computers, the Internet, software, and by extension, Microsoft. Or maybe I've got the order reversed. In either case, the effect is the same. Browser security problems may have little to do with keeping a database of personal information safe. But from a consumer perspective, they are one and the same.
The problem to me is that the financial services business has been abusing consumer data forever. Ever have to live with the consequences of a mistake on your credit report? Ever try to get that mistake fixed? That's the real reason people should worry about the security of their personal data: this is just how these companies do business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has fewer real uses for your personal information and can make plenty of money without misusing it. In fact, Microsoft could probably make even more money by giving consumers real control over their personal data.
Furthermore, if Microsoft was caught misusing personal data, the negative impact would be much more severe than it would be on financial services companies. Unlike most of those businesses, which exist largely hidden from public view, Microsoft is out there front-and-centre every day.
So, while I am not sure it's such a great idea to have all that personal information sitting on someone's server (My Services would include your financial data, contact lists, calendars, documents, and other personal information), I know I'd trust Microsoft with it before I trusted my bank or credit card companies.
What a flacid piece of propaganda. Didn't Microsoft have the source code for Windows stolen from their secure network? Isn't Microsoft slammed for taking so VERY VERY long to act on security bug reports if at they act at all. You have to make an exploit and publish it for them to even notice.
You think a bank would not get bad publicity if they had a security break? If my credit card information was stolen from a bank I would be livid!
You think it is a good thing to trust a company that had a bug in its software that required you to only type the first letter of a password to get in? That gives non-US customers a MUCH easier to crack form of encryption? What about liability - Microsoft disclaims all responsibility for everything, would they be willing to back up any mismanagement with refunds? ... buddy - you are a peanut.