Jerry,

>Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday June 26, @06:33PM
>from the now-thats-nice-and-fair dept.
>alandd writes "As a Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) member, I just
>recieved the email below notifying me in order to get special developer
>downloads, I will have to have a Microsoft Passport account. Passport stores
>all your private info to share with one click among other sites. Past articles have mentioned some since removed draconian terms of use and there have also been reports of security breaches in the past. Now MS is requiring the technically savy to sign up. I don't want to but my job requirements and MS give me no choice!" No your honor we're not a monopoly. We just use our market share to force people to adopt each of our new products.

I think /. got a bit carried away with this submission...as some of the highly-modded posts on Slashdot state, MS has every right to do this for the following reasons:

- MSDN already requires that you submit information such as country, zip code, etc., so Passport is not asking for anything more than what they already have on their servers.
- MS has the right to authenticate folks to their server in any way they see fit. MSDN is their service after all...if you don't like it, develop in something else.
- Since this fellow is complaining about developing at work, why doesn't he just use a work-based profile in Passport? He doesn't _have_ to give up any personal information whatsoever...
- Go try and download free stuff from Apple, Sun, Oracle, etc...they will all ask for registration info of some sort...not really any worse than Passport. Just enter work info and be done with it.

Slashdot is getting a bit trigger-happy with any articles that pounce on MS. Sadly, a lot of the media is starting to do this. I am all for MS being called to the floor for some of their dominating practices, but singling them out for some of the things they do which are widely used in the industry is just sort of inane...

JoeK