Microsoft clarifies privacy policy for Windows Media Player

[LoctOut]

Has NE1 identified this log file and where it hides?


Microsoft clarifies privacy policy for Windows Media Player
Posted by waddy on Thursday, February 21 @ 19:30:00 GMT (0 reads)


LightWave writes "On Wednesday, Microsoft changed it's privacy policy to let people understand that Windows Media Player keeps track of the media played in it, and stores it in a log file on the user's computer.

The previous privacy policy only stated that the program downloaded information about CD's, but stated nothing about the log file.

Privacy experts are concerned that the log file can be used against the user in ways such as seeing if users actually paid for the music or video that they watch.

Microsoft says it has no plans to sell the data collected by Media Player 8

 

[zman]

Ive been trying to work out how it actually gets out .

I looked for a log , but its nowhere to be found , maybe in a .dll

Going to run a packet sniffer and see what happens when i run WMP8 and a divx

 

[LoctOut]

great zman, let us know will ya? I've been using Zone Alarm pro all along to shut down media player, so I don't think anything has gone out. But I haven't found anything on my system yet that would seem to log this info.

 

[max]

i have looked everywhere and cannot find any reference to this at all

its drivin me mad !

 

[DarkSiege]

I think i may have found the file......
This is where i found this data base file called wmplibrary_v_0_12.db
I found it in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index
I'm not sure if that's the file, but it's a start...

 

[iamtaylormade]

I think you are correct

I decided to explore this file and found that the modified dates/times were not consistant with the last date/time I played a CD. While I was playing a CD however, the file wmplibrary_v_0_12.ird appeared in the same directory. I suppose this could just be a temp file for who knows what. I am not fimiliar with the .lrd extention. When the CD is stopped, the file is immediately removed and no change to the other file had been made (modified date/time). If I could only decrypt that damn dbase file.