Microsoft´s Smart Tags threaten Web

Our favorite monopolist also insists, after my query on the subject, that the tags can´t be used to ``phone home´´ and tell Microsoft -- or some other company creating its own tags -- what Web sites a computer user has just visited. Let´s see if that holds up when clever programmers get hold of this technology and put it to the test.

Even the possibility of tracking would be unnerving, given that millions of people have signed up for various Microsoft services, such as Passport, which could readily identify them when they were logged on. And given Microsoft´s determination that Passport be the sole authentication method for the Web services it´s going to sell -- and other people´s Web services using the Microsoft software architecture -- anything that would enable mass surveillance should be stopped before it starts.

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http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/dgillmor/dg061501.htm