In a recent development, two consumer advocacy groups have asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate Microsoft and other web based companies as they have alleged that these companies are using ‘unfair and deceptive’ business practices. Both the groups have argued that these practices violate consumer privacy and they are using unfair means to collect data about their customers.
The complaint has been filed by The Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The complaint made to the FTC has specifically asked the watchdog to investigate Microsoft’s use of customer data collection in the company’s web advertising service, adCenter. The adCenter service is at present experimenting with contextual advertising based on customer’s web habits.
