document: title: privacy statement
text: This document was last updated April 14, 2005.

At Microsoft ® we understand that purchasing services online involves a great deal of trust on your part. We take this trust very seriously and make it a priority to protect the confidentiality of the personally identifiable information ("PII") you provide to us. (PII includes information that can be linked to you as a specific individual, such as your name, address, phone number, or e-mail address.) Sometimes we need information to provide services that you request, and this Privacy Statement explains what information we will collect and how we will use it. By using this site, you consent to the information practices described in this Privacy Statement.

Microsoft is a participant in the Safe Harbor Agreement between the United States and the European Union, and complies with the Safe Harbor principles published by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

This Privacy Statement applies to the Microsoft Office  Online Web site. It does not apply to other online or offline Microsoft sites, products or services.

### Information collected about you

Microsoft Office 2003 collects personally identifiable information ("PII") about you that you specifically and voluntarily provide. PII includes information that can identify you as a specific individual, such as your name, phone number, or e-mail address. On all Office 2003 pages that collect PII, we specifically describe what information is required in order to provide you with the product or service that you have requested.

Office 2003 collects PII when you:

  * Post to one of the Office 2003 communities
  * Submit a rating
  * Use one of the Office 2003 self-paced interactive courses
  * Sign up for the Office Marketplace
  * Contact Office 2003



### Post to one of the Office 2003 Communities

Office 2003 provides online communities where you can get answers to your questions about Office or post answers to other users' questions. When you first post to an Office community, Office will ask you to provide a screen name and e-mail address. All community users can see anything you post, including your screen name and IP address. Office also records the communities that you belong to and a score based on the number of users that you have helped. You have the option of publishing your e-mail address and community membership information to others on the system, although you are not required to do so.

### Submit a Rating

You have the opportunity to rate some content in Office  2003, such as posts to a community, online courses, or design templates provided by Office. When you rate content, Office will collect your rating as well as a uniquely identifying number used to match you with the rating that you have provided. Your rating will always be anonymous. The uniquely identifying number is used only to allow you to change your rating at a later time.

### Use one of the Office 2003 self-paced interactive courses

While you are taking one of the Office 2003  self-paced training courses, Office creates a file for you that keeps track of the lessons that you have completed. This allows Office to show you which lessons you have already completed. This information is not made available to other Office customers or to any third parties.

### Sign up for the Office Marketplace (US Only)

If you own a business or a service, you have the option of signing up to place your business information in the Office Marketplace section of Office 2003. The information that you enter will be exposed to other Office users. Office Marketplace collects only the information that you choose to give to us.

### Contacting Office 2003

Office 2003 collects information such as your full name, e-mail address, and/or contact information whenever you submit a question or suggestion. This information is used only to track your question and contact you with a response if necessary.

### Computer Information

Office 2003 collects certain technical information from your computer each time you request a page during a visit to Office. This information is collected from your computer's Web browser and may include your IP address, operating system, Web browser software (e.g. Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer), screen resolution, and referrer Web site. Wireless users: Please check with your wireless company if you are using your cellular phone to access the Internet to understand whether PII may be used to identify you.

### Office 2003 and Microsoft .Net Passport

Microsoft Office 2003 uses the .NET Passport service to provide certain registration and sign-in services. In order to sign in to this site using .NET Passport, you will be asked to type your e-mail address and a password. This same Passport sign-in allows you to access many other Passport participating sites and services. If you create a .NET Passport from Office, you are simultaneously registering with Office and opening a .NET Passport account. All of the registration information that you provide will be stored by Office, and some or all of that information will also be stored by .NET Passport in your Passport profile.

To learn more about the Passport service and how Passport uses and protects your personal information, please read the Passport Privacy Statement.

### Cookies and Other Web Technologies

A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and cookies set by Office can only be read by Office.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, one of the cookies described below saves your language preference, so that Office will always provide you with the language you've selected when you return.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you will not be able to fully experience the interactive features of this or other web sites that you visit.

Office will serve you cookies to personalize your site experience, authenticate your identity to the site, and store your language and site settings.

### Use of Your Information

Microsoft Office 2003 will use your information for one of four purposes:

  1. To store your information for you and deliver it to you when you request it.
  2. To help you quickly find software, services or information on the Microsoft Office 2003 Web services.
  3. To help us create and deliver content most relevant to you.
  4. To learn about how our products fail and fix such problems.



You have the option of receiving alerts of product upgrades, special offers, updated information, and other new services from Microsoft. You can choose to sign up for or remove yourself from these alerts at any time. Please see the section on Deciding What Communications You Receive for more information.

Personally identifiable information collected on this site may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using this site, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country.

### Sharing Your Information

Microsoft Office 2003 does not sell or rent your personal information (PII) to anyone.

Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Statement, personal information you provide on this site will not be shared outside of Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your permission. We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, including answering customer questions about products or services, sending postal mail and processing event registration. We will only provide those companies the information they need to deliver the service, and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

### Our Legal Obligations

Microsoft may disclose personal information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft and its family of Web sites, or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Microsoft, its Web sites, or the public.

### Other Web Sites

There are several places throughout Office that may link you to other Web sites that do not operate under Office 2003's information privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use, and share information. Microsoft is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the Microsoft.com domain.

### Use of Web Beacons

Office 2003 Web pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes called single-pixel gifs - that allow Office to count users who have visited those pages. Office may include web beacons in e-mail messages in order to count how many messages have been opened and acted upon. Web beacons are not used to access your personal information on Office; they are a technique we use to compile aggregated statistics about Office Web site usage.

Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the Web beacon resides.

### Office Update

Office Update allows you to scan your computer for the Office updates you need, and then download and install the necessary updates.

When you choose to scan your computer, Office sends a catalog to your computer containing a list of the potential updates that you may need, as well as an ActiveX control to run the scan. The ActiveX control compares the contents of your computer with the update list and shows you the updates that you should install. Office Update then allows you to download and install the updates using the site.

Office Update maintains a log of successful and failed update installations. This log is anonymized and used to ensure the quality of the Office Update service.

Office Update does not maintain a record of the specific files on your machine and does not collect any personal information.

### Control Over and Access to Your Information

When you give us personal information, Microsoft Office will not share that information with third parties without your permission, other than for the limited exceptions already listed. It will only be used for the purposes stated above.

You can access the information that you provide to us by going to the page in which you entered your personal information. For instance, you can access your posts in the Communities by going to the Communities home page.

Please be aware that this Privacy Statement and the privacy choices you make on this site will not necessarily apply to personal information you may have provided to Microsoft in the context of other, separately operated, Microsoft products or services.

### Deciding What Communications You Receive

Microsoft Office may send out periodic e-mails informing you of technical service issues related to a product or service you requested. You can stop receiving these e-mails and delete personal information about you by following the instructions included with each e-mail.

### Protecting Your Information

We want you to feel confident about using Microsoft Office  2003 to store and share your information. Office helps to protect the security of personal information and honors your choices for its intended use. Our goal is to protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on computer servers with limited access, which are located in controlled facilities.

### Changes to this Privacy Statement

We may occasionally update this Privacy Statement. When we do, we will also revise the "last updated" date at the top of the Privacy Statement. For material changes to this Privacy Statement or how Microsoft Office  2003 will use your PII, we will notify you either by placing a prominent notice on the home page of our Web site or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Statement to stay informed about how we are protecting the personal information we collect. Your continued use of the service constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Statement and any updates.

If you have questions about our Privacy Statement, please contact us.

### Contact information

Microsoft welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Statement. If you believe that Microsoft has not adhered to this Privacy Statement, please contact us via the Internet or postal mail and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.

Microsoft Office 2003 Privacy  
One Microsoft Way  
Redmond, WA 98052  
USA