Satya Nadella: Microsoft doesn't "overmonetise" your data

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella reaffirmed his firm’s commitment to privacy this weekend in an interview with the UK’s Times after its Future Decoded conference.

The firm spoke about how it would be using data derived from user’s Bing searches and the LinkedIn social network, both of which have a lot of user data that can be valuable to advertisers and marketers.

“We don’t want to over-monetise. If anything, one of the things we’ve done is to is to make sure that the utility is maximised for the users,” Nadella told the Times this weekend.  He went on to say, “Users should only use that service if that customer data creates utility for them. If you think about Linkedin, it is all about economic opportunity for the member. It’s not about taking member data and using it for something else.”

In other words, the data you give yo Microsoft should only be used to provide more helpful experiences to you — the user — and not to an unrelated third party. It’s a sentiment that’s not unique to Microsoft, Apple also believes in user privacy

Nadella told the Times that he believed that consumers deserved a choice about how their data was used. While he said he didn’t want to pick “on [his] competition’s business model,” it was undoubtedly a reference to how tech firms like Facebook and Google rely on exploiting their user data to place ads.

Over the past year, Nadella’s Microsoft has added more granular privacy options to its Windows operating system, as well as implemented GDPR policies both in the UK and non-European regions.

Source: The Times