Microsoft Threatens Startups Over Account Info

HangingChad writes "According to Fortune, there are reports that Microsoft is trying to strong arm startups to give preferential treatment to MSN Messenger and are using account information as leverage. 'If the company wants to offer other IM services (from Yahoo, Google or AOL, say), Messenger must get top billing. And if the startup wants to offer any other IM service, it must pay Microsoft 25 cents a user per year for a site license.' Of course, if the company is willing to use Messenger exclusively 'fee will be discounted 100 percent.' Getting detailed information is difficult as many of the companies being approached are afraid of reprisals."

They are all playing the lock in game

[Zeinfeld (263942)]

All the social networking companies are playing this game. The only difference is that when Microsoft points a lawyer at you, they are loaded.

Open Identity systems such as OpenID are the way to go. But how do we break open the proprietary lock? Tim Berners-Lee told me to look at FOAF but we still need to complete the integration into the authentication systems.

Re:They are all playing the lock in game

[Zeinfeld (263942)]

Bad form to follow up one's post, but when I said the companies were all playing the same game, I meant the lock in game. The tactics are different but the idea is the same: the social networking company owns the contacts and the data.

You can export your links to other people in these schemes but the inbound links point in the same place, you can take your data but not your network.

One step forward here is that Google blogger has at last allowed people to use their own domain name with their blog. So you can move your blog to a different host if you please.

Re:They are all playing the lock in game

[Enlightenment (1073994)]

I think this quote says quite a lot: "We want to make sure our data is kept between our users and our servers." "Our data"? Is that even a legal position to take? It's sure as hell not intuitively obvious that they should be able to consider data theirs just because they're the ones who keep track of it.

What about Intellectual Property?

[mangu (126918)]

"Our data"? Is that even a legal position to take? It's sure as hell not intuitively obvious that they should be able to consider data theirs just because they're the ones who keep track of it.

An interesting position, if we the people would be allowed to claim it. Since I'm the keeper of the information in my computer, does it mean I own the intellectual property?!...

Yes, I know, there's a difference between "data" an "information". But my list of contacts isn't something that arose spontaneously, we aren't talking about phone books here. I worked for years to meet all the people in my list. That's information that has been carefully collected and organized, it's not like taking a list of everybody who lives in a city and ordering by last name.

That list of contacts is *MY* data, *MY* property and *I* should have the final word about it!

Re:What about Intellectual Property?

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

That list of contacts is *MY* data, *MY* property and *I* should have the final word about it!

You would think so, wouldn't you? On the other hand, I wonder what the EULA / TOS that WIM users clicked right through without reading has to say about it.

Perhaps all your lists are belonging to them.

Re:

[KillerCow (213458)]

That list of contacts is *MY* data, *MY* property and *I* should have the final word about it!

Not when you store it on *MY* server. If you want to retain control of your data, then don't give it to me.

Re:

[Pat69 (588497)]

Not when you store it on *MY* server. If you want to retain control of your data, then don't give it to me.

So if I were to host web sites on your servers, you would own the content on my sites?

Interesting...

Re:

[jav1231 (539129)]

It's their data, we're their customers. How dare anyone try to gain market share in their market? Wooing their users? This story illustrates nearly everything that's wrong with Microsoft.

Re:They are all playing the lock in game

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

It's their data, we're their customers.

We're their product.

Marketing companies are their customers.

Re:

[jdevivre (923797)]

"Our data"? Is that even a legal position to take?

You know, I was all ready to "hear hear" that sentiment, and then I thought of the Postal Service. The content of a letter is mine (keep it simple and bypass copyright, etc), but the responsibility of delivery is theirs. They can't lose it, have it stolen, altered, copied or viewed by anyone (again, simplify) without "failing" their purpose. Same goes for the IM handlers, I guess. Having control over the in- and out- points, along with the channels between is just easier to meet the responsibilities.

Re:They are all playing the lock in game

[Divebus (860563)]

Same old head crushers. Are you watching this DOJ? Oh, it's not a threat... it's a choice. An anti-competitive, locked in, service bundling, vendor threatening choice - in the name of beter "security". Puleeeez. We've seen this behavior before and I hope this blows up in their face worse than last time.

Re:Not really...

[Zeinfeld (263942)]

It wasn't "social networking sites", but "webmail sites". And of the three big ones (Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google), only Microsoft try to use control of the mail contacts as a "leverage" for their other products.

Acording to TFA it was the social networking sites that were trying to hook in.

OK so you don't like Microsoft's tactics, don't get a Hotmail account. What I find rather more objectionable is the amount of social networking spam I have been getting from new social networking sites trying to gain critical mass.

In one week I received email from three new networks trying to start up, each one was playing the 'download all the contacts and spam them' game.

Flaming Microsoft is fun but after the first decade or so it got old. I gave that up in '98 or so. Rather more interesting is working out what we can do to change the game.

In the dotCrime Manifesto I proposed a mashup of OpenID/SAML/WS-* on the authentication side, FOAF as contact interchange medium, DNS SRV records as the discovery mechanism. The objective being to create an identity system in which end users own and control their own data.

Finding folk who are upset enough to flame Microsoft is rather easier than finding folk interested in writing or deploying code that might change the situation.

Re:

[makomk (752139)]

Yes, I'm sure people who want to move providers would be willing to open and copy-and-paste out every email they ever received by hand, as well as all of their contacts. I think you're the one who should have thought before you made an ass out of yourself.

Heavy Foot

[mfh (56)]

Microsoft has always had a heavy foot, but waiving fees for those who cut out the competition requires another solution.

Drop Microsoft! Just drop them. Stop using them. They are old anyway. Let's come up with something NEW!

Backfires inc!

Re:Heavy Foot

[Mateo_LeFou (859634)]

"Drop Microsoft! Just drop them"

You're actually suggesting there are viable substitutes for Hotmail?!@!?

Re:

[rucs_hack (784150)]

Like it or not, they are a major IM provider.

I'm not an MS fan, but this sort of thing does irritate me. They are *not* strongarming startups. What they are doing is trying to find ways of monetizing their services. These services are free to end users, but why should they be free for other businesses to use? I can't see why. How is it reasonable to use another companies product to make money without paying for that usage? Only if the company wants it to be used for free, and Microsoft doesn't. That's their

Re:Heavy Foot

[MightyYar (622222)]

What they are doing is trying to find ways of monetizing their services.

All well and good if they weren't shipping the product free with their monopoly OS. They have to play by different rules than everyone else, because no one else has a monopoly to leverage.

Monetize yes, Service not so much

[Mateo_LeFou (859634)]

Your hotmail contacts are a data set. Reading them, even automagically using technology that was boring in 1975, is not a service but a natural human faculty.

"And besides, 25 cents per user per year?"

Not a huge number, but "25 cents per user per year per relevant dataset" would be a dealbreaker for every startup I know.

Re:

[Znork (31774)]

"What they are doing is trying to find ways of monetizing their services."

Um, no. They're monetizing people using _other_ companies services. You get it for free if you _only_ offer the MS service, you have to pay to if you want to offer someone elses service.

Best thing to do is to just hang up on them if they call. It's not a company that will ever learn, and history shows that any deals made with Microsoft has only one winner and it ain't you.

Re:

[thegnu (557446)]

yeah, I'm not sure what they're charging for.

Oh, by the way, dude: If I sell you a computer, and you then purchase hardware from someone other than me, you must pay me 25 cents per person-device-year. Sounds pretty fucking stupid to me. But I suppose if businesses want to do business with people like Microsoft, it serves them right.

Re:

[Eggplant62 (120514)]

I'm kind of surprised that this doesn't trigger some kind of investigation into further attempts at continuing their monopoly presence in the marketplace. I'd love to shoot Judge Kollar-Kotelly myself over the bad decision-making that happened with the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. With each and every little trick that gets exposed, the further I pull away from ever considering using their products for anything at all. If it weren't for the work I'm doing in medical transcription, with a VBscript app

Evil is Microsoft's most important product?

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

Quote from the Fortune article: "This is a great example of why Google is the leader ... and Microsoft is not..."

Microsoft: Do evil if evil makes money? Or, Microsoft: Evil is our most important product, making money is secondary?

Re:

[Adambomb (118938)]

Nah, the Venn of Evil and Making Money overlaps.

not EQUAL sets maybe, but a good chunk of intersection =).

Re:

[david_thornley (598059)]

From what limited inside knowledge I have, the motto is "Make money." Evil has nothing to do with it, aside from the fact that the overwhelming desire to make lots and lots of money can be thoroughly evil. "Love of money is the root of all evil", Ecclesiastes something or other, or maybe something else. Not entirely true, since there's other evils, but at least there's a pretty old and possibly authoritative principle here.

Re:Evil is Microsoft's most important product?

[gmack (197796)]

Actually the quote from Ecclesiastes is "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." The missing word is quite significant. For some reason it's one of the most often misquoted scriptures.

So, the real question

[WindBourne (631190)]

why are they still playing with MS? MS will ALWAYS pull these illegal actions. All the companies have to do is quit playing in MS's back yard.

What amazes me, is that MS does not buy companies who are on their platform. They just strongarm them and steal as be needed. Instead, they buy companies who could represent a threat to their platform or are making money hand over fist (the 2 tend to go hand in hand). So, by being in Windows, a startup not only pays much higher costs, but they also kill off a huge chunk of the market that would otherwise drive up their price, and then subject themselves to MS's hand.

Oblig. Simpsons Ref. - 5F11 - Das Bus

[mikelieman (35628)]

Back at the peaceful Simpsons house. Homer is reading "Internet for Dummies".

HOMER
Oh, they have the Internet on computers now!

MARGE
Homer, Bill Gates is here.

HOMER
Bill Gates?! Millionaire computer nerd Bill Gates! Oh my god. Oh my god. Get out of sight, Marge. I don't want this to look like a two-bit operation.

Marge groans and rolls her eyes. Bill Gates and two "associates" enter.

GATES
Mr. Simpson?

HOMER
You don't look so rich.

GATES
Don't let the haircut fool you, I am exceedingly wealthy.

HOMER
(quietly to Marge)

It's security, stupid

[nbauman (624611)]

From TFA:

Hall said that Microsoft's main concern, and the reason it sent out Big Foot letters in the first place, was security.

Well, of course. Think of the children.

Mess them up!

[baadger (764884)]

Now seems like a good time to put in a plug for the Mess.be [www.mess.be] Mess Patch [patch.mess.be], which can strip out all the bloat, all the ads and all the 'extra services and features' that come with Windows Live Messenger and leave you with a relatively clean and usable client.

On a somewhat related note, have Vista users noticed the new 'Live' programs available optionally through Windows Update?

Re:

[BenoitRen (998927)]

Or you could, you know, use an alternative client to access the MSN network.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Like this one:
http://www.pidgin.im/ [pidgin.im]

Anal ogy

[fulldecent (598482)]

A piece of software without MSN integration is like a dog without bricks tied around its neck.

Broken up

[nurb432 (527695)]

They should have been broken up after being found a monopoly. There is little to stop them from doing things like this.

Parity Error

[NullProg (70833)]

We put the question to Brian Hall, general manager for Windows Live. "We want the user to be in control of their stuff," he told me. "We believe strongly that it's the user's data, it's the user's choice."

Oh really? What about Secure Audio Path and the other draconian DRM measures in Windows.

Microsoft must be running for public office. Say one thing, do another.

Enjoy,

Security wasn't hardly mentioned

[mgkimsal2 (200677)]

They mentioned they wanted to keep data secure, but there was no mention from anyone interviewed (anonymously), that MS was demanding a security audit of the companies' systems. That would be an interesting approach to take. You can access our data for $x/user/year, but we'll waive the fee if you submit to an audit to prove that you'll be handling the data in a secure manner. I still wouldn't agree with the practice, but it would have been a more PR-savvy move to take. "We're protecting this customer data, but still allowing the user to take their data with them, etc". During their audit, they might just happen to find that Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL and MySQL aren't as 'secure' as MSSQL, and 'suggest' that companies use MSSQL in the mix as well for user data, but that's just a conspiracy theorist mindset at that point. :)

Uh-huh...

[IonOtter (629215)]

I used Messenger a few times? Then I found out that my user/pass was the same for my Hotmail account, AND my Passport. I remember I was using my Passport account to purchase something, when I suddenly realized, "Hey...my credit card info is tied to my Hotmail and MSN Messenger password..."

I promptly deleted the credit card info, changed the user info, scrambled the password by mashing the keyboard with a copy&paste and changed the email to a free Hushmail account that would go away in 30 days.

They've since changed that practice, but MS hasn't offered me anything worthwhile to bring me back.

Easy solution

[Arcturax (454188)]

Make Microsoft look like assholes and make sure users know it's MS's fault.

On your social networking/Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, whatever site allow users to import from AIM, YIM and Google. However for MSN, grey out the option and next to it in red put "Due to legal pressure by Microsoft, if you use MSN, you must manually import your contacts" and give a link to a tedious page that restates this reason and make them upload them one at a time.

Naturally users are going to be rather upset at MS and wonder if maybe they should switch to AIM instead.

Re:

[dotancohen (1015143)]

You mean, to tell users the truth instead of bending over backwards to support MS?

Spark

[phrostie (121428)]

Currently my company uses Spark(LGPL), not fancy, but it works http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp [igniterealtime.org]
last company used MSN(seemed stripped down), didn't do any more than spark

Some thoughts

[PPH (736903)]

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that any contract terms that offer a discount for 100% of someone's business is restraint of trade and runs afoul of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Volume discounts are OK, based upon some threshold quantities. But 100% is simply a test for the exclusion of other suppliers.

I'm not an economist, but placing barriers on the export of contact information from Hotmail reduces the value of the Hotmail service. If the cost to move a particular piece of data from within one system to any other is higher than moving it in the other direction, its value inside that high cost system is lower by that amount.

Could someone please explain?

[belmolis (702863)]

For those of us who don't use any of these services, could someone please clarify what is at issue. As I understand it, the problem is that people who have a contact list on a Microsoft service want to be able to use that contact list for some other company's service. Can't they just save their contacts in a file that the other services can import? Surely Microsoft has no claim to the data itself and therefore no way to interfere with importing such a file. It sounds like the other services are trying to connect to the Microsoft service and that that is what gives Microsoft something to say about it. Why do they need to do this?

standard practice

[Tom (822)]

Par for the course for MS.

Serious question: Has anyone ever worked with MS and hasn't been fucked with?

Re:Why isn't IM distributed?

[s4m7 (519684)]

In fact, google's IM protocol is based on Jabber. [jabber.org]

from their about page:

Decentralized -- the architecture of the Jabber network is similar to email; as a result, anyone can run their own Jabber server, enabling individuals and organizations to take control of their IM experience.

Re:Why isn't IM distributed?

[Stradenko (160417)]

Thanks for describing XMPP.

Re:

[_merlin (160982)]

Well, Jabber (as used by Google Talk) is distributed. You can log on with to any Jabber server you have an account with, and you should be able to talk to users on any other Jabber server. Google just happen to have a lot of people with accounts on their Jabber server.

Re:Why isn't IM distributed?

[imbaczek (690596)]

that idea is so good that it's been implemented quite some time ago [wikipedia.org].

As other pointed out

[WindBourne (631190)]

That google is based on XMPP/Jabber, but even AOL is jumping onboard with it. I imagine it is only a bit of time before yahoo will also see the light. The ONLY one that will strive to remain off it will be MS. But you can bet that once they do, it will be with an interesting extension (and very closed one).

Re:

[MLCT (1148749)]

The other replies have correctly highlighted XMPP. What your question really gets at is *why* this hasn't been widely adopted. The basic answer is the moneterization of the internet - commercial exploitation, not only for the purposes of making money, but of attempting to control the underlying network structure to exclude competitors.

I think the most frightening thought of all is what would the net be like if it was designed from the ground up by the likes of MS & AOL a decade ago. In reality the

Re:

[Eggplant62 (120514)]

Look at the current situation with SMTP and it being abused by spammers, and I think you see why IM isn't modeled in the same manner. Sure, there are lots of assholes abusing IM to spam like crazy, but I must say that I don't see anywhere near the amount of bogus IM messages on my Yahoo! IM account that I used to. I wonder what changed?

Re:Very confused by new Slashdot post filter thing

[thegnu (557446)]

I think you will find [reddit.com] a satisfactory solutution [digg.com] by clicking this link [kuro5hin.org]