David,

As just an average user, and because the office where I had a contract wanted to see if MSN Messenger was useful for a specific thing, I had to get a Passport "account" to satisfy that. Much later, when I wanted to submit a web-based problem with Office2000 I found that I had to use that account (or open one) to do that too. Lucky I remembered the password.

I sure don't remember anything allowing me to "control" any of my info in any way.

Now I readily admit to web dysfunction and there may have been things there that I should have recognized as letting me do this if I know the codewords.

Are there special things to click to do this?... Is it possible that things have changed on the site/registration since I was there last (January of this year)?

In fact I don't even know where to go to change this stuff!... I was brought there to do the sign-up, I did it, and that was the end of it.
Seems to me that, at the very least, MS should do me the courtesy of putting something in some very obvious place on my system to let me "maintain" that stuff.

Basically I see the whole Passport thing as a sneaky thing that will one day prove to hurt me. If this IS going to be integral to future MS (and web generally) dealings then things need to be far more up-front than they have been to date.

Jim Nelson


>Bob,
>
>>I really resent having to sign up for Passport just to exercise my privledges as a MSDN Universal Subscriber.
>
>I'm curious about what's your beef with getting a Passport account? Since you can control how much information you put into the account and can then control which Passport-enabled sites get to see which parts of that info, is it a suspicion that MS will somehow illegally or unjustly use your info beyond what you have authorized?
>
>Or is it just not wanting to be forced into doing a certain thing to use their software and resources?
>
>Dave