Are we going to be forced to mention our gender, age, buying habits, consumer behaviours,… as Microsoft users or will MS allow me to uncheck the “send my consumer details to Gatineau please” option somewhere?

Where does Gatineau stop and where is exactly the “anonymous” border located.

I would like analytics to serve me as an end-consumer in a smart way, i.e. give the websites that I think deserve it, the necessary details so that I receive added-value info in my mailbox – no problem with that. But demographic data to be gathered on the Internet is not something that I expect to allow (if I can…) as a basic consumer. Advertisers and media buying agencies will indeed think differently.

I don’t think it will be only a hype. I’ve seen the product in San Francisco a few months ago.

To answer your question regarding where the data comes from, let me quote Ian:
“Questions are already being asked on Dave’s blog about where we get this data from; the answer is that we do get this information from users’ Live ID (formerly known as Microsoft Passport) profiles, but I would stress that we get this information anonymously, and there is no use of PII (Personally Identifiable Information, such as name or e-mail address) in the product.”

He promissed to post more information shortly, so keep watching his blog or if you have the opportunity join un on the 14th and you will be able to ask him directly

Kind Regards,

René