Microsoft Misusing Their Own Mountain of Searchable Data
June 7, 2013
Microsoft is sitting on a search goldmine and people are just starting to see it. Whenever you Skype, have you thought about the data you are releasing into the world? Probably not. But Skype’s owners have, as we discovered in a fascinating The H Security article, “Skype With Care—Microsoft is Reading Everything you Write.”
According to the story:
A spokesman for the company confirmed that it scans messages to filter out spam and phishing websites. This explanation does not appear to fit the facts, however. Spam and phishing sites are not usually found on HTTPS pages. By contrast, Skype leaves the more commonly affected HTTP URLs, containing no information on ownership, untouched. Skype also sends head requests which merely fetches administrative information relating to the server. To check a site for spam or phishing, Skype would need to examine its content.
Honestly, this should not come as a shock to anyone. Frankly, those interested in search should be paying close attention. They should be asking: will Microsoft’s search system be able to index the content and provide relevant results in a timely, accurate manner? We don’t know, but if Yahoo!’s recent collapsed partnership with Microsoft is any indication, the company probably isn’t putting that Skype data to good use.
Patrick Roland, June 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Comments
3 Responses to “Microsoft Misusing Their Own Mountain of Searchable Data”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] Microsoft Misusing Their Own Mountain of Searchable Data (arnoldit.com) […]
[…] Microsoft Misusing Their Own Mountain of Searchable Data (arnoldit.com) […]
[…] Microsoft Misusing Their Own Mountain of Searchable Data (arnoldit.com) […]