I wonder if Microsoft gets tired of witch hunts

Now let’s see – how long has Google been running AdSense/AdWords?

Well in internet time it is a very long time and at most they have only had a few; comparatively, folks complaining about worries concerning the information being gathered as Google peppers millions of webpages with ads. Of course everyone is in such a lovefest with Google that these complainers are lumped in with the tinfoil hat crowd and laughed away.

But damn, Microsoft enters the field of advertising with its adCenter and all of a sudden we have groups that are so concerned about our information that they want an FTC investigation.

Two consumer advocacy groups have filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), saying Microsoft Corp. and other Web-based companies are using “unfair and deceptive” business practices to collect data about their customers.
The complaint by The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), filed Wednesday, asks the FTC to investigate Microsoft’s use of customer data collection in its Web advertising service, called adCenter. The adCenter service targets customers with contextual advertising based on their Web habits. [Full ITWorld article]  

Hmmmm .. contextual advertising … isn’t that what Google and a whole slew of other ad networks do? Now granted the article doesn’t state anywhere who the “other web-based companies” are; but Microsoft is right there front and center as the handy whipping boy. After all Google does no evil right so they couldn’t be doing the same sort of thing would they.

How about some fairness in reporting here folks. Either have the guts to name Microsoft alone as a nasty evil doer or if you are going to use a term like “other Web-based companies” name the companies. Sheez and they call bloggers a bunch of inaccurate journalist wannabes.