Privacy Concerns Prompt Microsoft to Alter Windows

Microsoft Corp. will modify its Windows 98 operating system to eliminate a problem that could make personal information available to hackers or unauthorized users, a published report said today.

Microsoft said the problem is created by a unique identifying number used for registration of Windows programs and other Microsoft products. The firm told the New York Times that the number had been added to the software so Microsoft support employees would be able to help users diagnose problems more accurately. Company officials said it was never intended to be used for marketing purposes.

The Windows registration number is tied to an individual’s name, to identifying numbers on the person’s computer hardware and to documents the user creates. Microsoft said the combination of the Windows number with all that data could result in the ability to track a single user and the documents the person created across vast computer networks, the newspaper said.

Hackers could compromise the resulting database, or subpoenas might allow authorities to gain access to information that would otherwise remain private and unavailable, the newspaper said.

“We’re definitely sensitive to any privacy concerns,” Robert Bennett, Microsoft’s group product manager for Windows, told the paper. “The software was not supposed to send this information unless the computer user checked a specific option.”

Efforts to reach the Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft to confirm that changes would be made were unsuccessful Saturday night.

Bennett told the paper that Microsoft will alter the way the registration program works in the next maintenance release of Windows 98 and that technicians would go through the company’s databases and expunge information that was improperly collected.

The story said Microsoft has been discussing the issue with Cambridge, Mass., programmer Robert M. Smith, who contacted the company earlier this week after discovering that the Microsoft Office business software was creating unique numbers identifying a user’s personal computer and embedding them in spreadsheet and word processing documents.