There's a bit of FUD here - all web searches (Google, Bing, whatever) go to first parties that sell tidbits of information about your searches and a bit of space on their web pages to third parties. That much has always been known. The allegation that it passes local PC searches directly to advertisers well, that seems a little unfounded. So I checked, I installed fiddler, set it up to proxy my Windows 8.1 preview Surface Pro, and typed in some search terms.
Here's what I found as a result of typing in "procmon":
With "Use Bing to search online" disabled
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When I begin typing in the search box, there is a single GET request to https://www.windowssearch.com/settings?setlang=en-US&cc=US with generic cookies that indicate my device type (the User-Agent is WindowsConnectedSearch/1.0 (Windows NT 6.3.0.0.9431.7;x64;Microsoft+Corporation;Surface+with+Windows+8+Pro;Slate;6.3.0;Touch;) and some cookies that may indicate a device or installation ID. It appears consistent between search results. However, "procmon" is not sent, nor is the first letter of my search result, and typing additional letters doesn't result in any more queries.
With "Get search suggestions and web results from Bing" enabled but "personalized results" disabled
--
Bing gets my search term when I finish typing. An explicit GET request for https://windowssearch.com/suggestions?qprocmon&cc=US&setlang... is sent and the response is, of all things, XML formatted with an <rss> element and tags that appear to indicate it's valid RSS. The cookies sent are the same as above, and no requests are sent to "advertisers", except it's reasonable to believe Microsoft might set the price for keywords based on their popularity.
With full personalized results enabled
--
Bing gets the above, plus a request was sent to https://www.windowssearch.com/fd/auth/signin?..etc.. to sign me in when I ticked the box. The request also sent a header indicating my current latitude, longitude, and accuracy, and appeared to send additional headers. But none of that went directly to advertisers, although Microsoft I'm sure can share it with whomever they like.
Now, lastly, until I actually click one of the non-local search suggestions that show up (not the files that show up) I don't get any more search queries. If I click one of the suggestions, like "procmon64.exe", I don't get any requests to any domain except "www.windowssearch.com". Even though I get thumbnails of web pages and snippets of relevant text below them, my request never went to an advertiser directly.
As well, even if I type a loaded search term like, I'll use the band "One Direction" for example, and select the search suggestion, I get a page with some local files (apparently One Direction matched EntityFramework.xml in some Visual Studio projects... interesting), artist information, tracks by them, albums and videos, web pages, Store apps, and related searches. But most importantly, my machine never contacted any remote host other than www.windowssearch.com.
So what Microsoft is doing is more innocuous than what the privacy-paranoid users of Ghostery already prevent. There were no third party domain names reached, no advertisers directly sent my search results, and never was the content of any local file uploaded. None of the GETs had a body.
Also, and finally, group policy can be used to completely disable the requests and businesses could always filter or block the domain windowssearch.com.
I'm a proponent for privacy, but let's not spread FUD.
windows 8.1 will, by default, transmit all local searches -- including things like my ssn to find the file I keep my gf's ssn in, plus any of the other things that I currently type into spotlight to do a full text search -- to microsoft. These search phrases will be subject to a retention and sharing policy that no doubt amounts to dozens of pages of text written by lawyers with an eye to making it difficult to understand that can be changed at whim. And that can be shared, along with identifying info, with the NSA either through subpoena or asking nicely or flat out cash money.
so what exactly is the fud? You didn't see the exact phrase go into their rtb so therefore it doesn't?
I suppose so, yes. I guess my question to you would be, why are you complaining about the privacy implications of this when your example involves storing sensitive data as plaintext, given the propensity of the average user to use online document storage like Google Drive these days, I doubt you should be too concerned about your hypothetical.
So what you're saying is that you believe it's acceptable for Microsoft to use OS features to scrape arbitary interesting-to-third-parties data from the OS it's hosted on, and it's the user's fault for not encrypting it?
because anybody who claims they think end users understand that any search phrase they type on their computer will end up being shared with advertisers and stored forever is a liar
Frankly, it's a good reason never to touch a msft product. At least google has the excuse they don't charge their users; I wonder why msft's is?
So you confirmed that every local search goes to MSFT servers? It is default, isn't it? And it's hard to turn off? You mention group policy -- I know that tool and it's harder than "just change in the registry" which is far from easy for plain users.
That's really, really bad. Local search sent to MSFT by a hard to change default is crossing the limit IMHO.
Typing "Bing" or "search" or "personalize" or many other variants in the search all give options to configure that data sharing directly from the OS in a very easy manner.
No, group policy is used in enterprises to disable things on a company-wide basis. By all accounts (even the original article) it's easy for end users to disable.
Disclosure: Works for Microsoft, but not directly in these parts of the company.
Thanks for digging into this. If you feel like there's a real privacy issue here, or even just a significant disconnect between reasonable expectations and what is actually happening, please get in touch: m-a-r-a-y (without the dashes) at microsoft dotcom.
Just to follow up: What, precisely, is the default behavior?
It's one thing if you have to enable "send search info to MS to enhance results", its another thing entirely to have that data being sent by default (and thus trapping the clueless).
The default is that your search text gets sent to Microsoft and not, AFAIK, to advertisers directly. I can definitively say that at the very least, Microsoft has established a firm barrier of separation between the advertisers and the Windows client. For example, it's not just a web page with embedded advertiser's javascript/html that it displays when you get your search results, everything is curated by Microsoft and delivered by their servers.
What's a "local" search? Is the behavior you describe observed when "Files" or "Settings" are selected in the "What to search" box, or only when it's set to "Everything" or the web options?
Here's what I found as a result of typing in "procmon":
With "Use Bing to search online" disabled
--
When I begin typing in the search box, there is a single GET request to https://www.windowssearch.com/settings?setlang=en-US&cc=US with generic cookies that indicate my device type (the User-Agent is WindowsConnectedSearch/1.0 (Windows NT 6.3.0.0.9431.7;x64;Microsoft+Corporation;Surface+with+Windows+8+Pro;Slate;6.3.0;Touch;) and some cookies that may indicate a device or installation ID. It appears consistent between search results. However, "procmon" is not sent, nor is the first letter of my search result, and typing additional letters doesn't result in any more queries.
With "Get search suggestions and web results from Bing" enabled but "personalized results" disabled
--
Bing gets my search term when I finish typing. An explicit GET request for https://windowssearch.com/suggestions?qprocmon&cc=US&setlang... is sent and the response is, of all things, XML formatted with an <rss> element and tags that appear to indicate it's valid RSS. The cookies sent are the same as above, and no requests are sent to "advertisers", except it's reasonable to believe Microsoft might set the price for keywords based on their popularity.
With full personalized results enabled
--
Bing gets the above, plus a request was sent to https://www.windowssearch.com/fd/auth/signin?..etc.. to sign me in when I ticked the box. The request also sent a header indicating my current latitude, longitude, and accuracy, and appeared to send additional headers. But none of that went directly to advertisers, although Microsoft I'm sure can share it with whomever they like.
Now, lastly, until I actually click one of the non-local search suggestions that show up (not the files that show up) I don't get any more search queries. If I click one of the suggestions, like "procmon64.exe", I don't get any requests to any domain except "www.windowssearch.com". Even though I get thumbnails of web pages and snippets of relevant text below them, my request never went to an advertiser directly.
As well, even if I type a loaded search term like, I'll use the band "One Direction" for example, and select the search suggestion, I get a page with some local files (apparently One Direction matched EntityFramework.xml in some Visual Studio projects... interesting), artist information, tracks by them, albums and videos, web pages, Store apps, and related searches. But most importantly, my machine never contacted any remote host other than www.windowssearch.com.
So what Microsoft is doing is more innocuous than what the privacy-paranoid users of Ghostery already prevent. There were no third party domain names reached, no advertisers directly sent my search results, and never was the content of any local file uploaded. None of the GETs had a body.
Also, and finally, group policy can be used to completely disable the requests and businesses could always filter or block the domain windowssearch.com.
I'm a proponent for privacy, but let's not spread FUD.