Microsoft launches free consumer privacy tool

Byron Acohido, USA TODAY | USATODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Microsoft's new privacy tool Consumers can take a quiz and discover their threshold for staying private online -- and get advice how to do that.

Quicky quiz designed to categorize your online privacy behaviors

New survey shows concerned citizens blocking services associated with privacy invasions

SEATTLE -- Microsoft today launched a new online service to help consumers think smarter about online privacy, backed by a TV ad campaign airing in Washington D.C. and Kansas City, MO.

The free tool, called Your Privacy Type, requires you to take a brief quiz. Microsoft uses your answers to categorize how much you may, or may not, be concerned about online privacy. The supporting website supplies guidance on how to more proactively gain some measure of privacy.

"We know that consumers care a lot about their online privacy, but often they don't know how to turn that interest into action," says Mary Snapp, Microsoft's deputy general counsel. "Our goal is to educate people about the choices they have."

The TV commercial dramatizes the potential harm of oversharing online, without making any references to the roiling Do Not Track debate simmering in the U.S. and Europe over new rules that could hinder how Google, Facebook and even Microsoft tracks consumers' Internet behaviors to sell ads.

The advertisement's punch line: "The lines between public and private may never be perfect, but at Microsoft we are going to keep on trying, because your privacy is our priority."

Tracking systems take note of where you go and what you search for on the Web — without your permission. And today many of the personal details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.

Tracking data culled from your Internet searches and surfing routinely gets commingled with the information you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs.

Privacy advocates fret that health companies, insurers, lenders, employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data -- and then use these profiles unfairly against people.

According to 2013 Truste consumer confidence index, 89 percent of U.S. adults worry about privacy, and 43 percent do not trust businesses with their personal information.

What's more, 48 percent of Americans are taking active measures to protect their privacy online, such as opting out of customized advertising, adjusting the privacy settings of their web browser, or blocking a social network application from using their location information, according to a recent Microsoft survey of 1,005 U.S. adults.

"Consumers are raising their voices and urging the computing industry to work together to give people more choice and control over how information is collected and shared online," Snapp says. "Today, we're showing our commitment to that evolving dialogue. "