Microsoft Embraces Facebook?

Most significantly, Microsoft seems to have totally embraced Facebook. On the first run after installing I was presented with a series of screens encouraging me to connect my messenger account with Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. LinkedIn and MySpace… yeah whatever. But Facebook? Facebook is a serious contender in the social space and for Microsoft to have so prominently pushed this I found more than a little surprising. I don’t think I can remember any other product where Microsoft has done this.

Secondly, I found the following screen a little disturbing:

Looks innocent enough on first glance, but on closer inspection I think this is a deliberate attempt to get people to accidentally agree to data collection. “Select your Settings”… really? There’s one “setting” and it’s not a setting at all – it’s giving permission to send usage information. And it’s turned on by default. I could be wrong but I suspect many users’ eyes will glaze over on seeing this and click the OK button without realizing what they just agreed to. Sure, it’s not like your giving away your bank detail but the whole thing just felt underhanded to me.