Key takeaways
- The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica controversy has heightened awareness around data privacy issues.
- Microsoft is considering leveraging user data from its Edge and Bing services for business applications.
- Despite its cautious approach to data usage, Microsoft is exploring ways to enhance its offerings through user insights.
- There is no detailed plan disclosed by Microsoft on how it will utilise the collected data.
In the wake of current developments, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica controversy might not be an unusual mention. It has brought into picture the dark side of data — such as the breach in user data privacy — because of which the social media giant has been facing an uproar from its users. Following the row, Facebook has brought changes in its security settings to a great extent, but there is much more to achieve.
While Facebook has been fighting its own issues, Microsoft, in a recent development suggested that it would make use of its user data from ventures like Edge and Bing to help business customers reap benefits. Though Microsoft has been using consumer data quite scarcely, it now seems ready to explore it for further gains. The company is reportedly strategising about how it can make use of the information which is collected from people who use Bing and Edge browsers to improve its suite of business applications, including customer relationship management, marketing and service softwares.
Though Microsoft hasn’t revealed a concrete plan on how and what data it will use, it is clear on their ambitions to expand into that avenue and create better opportunities for the company. Given the wide range of products that they offers, Microsoft believes that it hasn’t been able to reap as many benefits as they should have. With an access to information to millions of people through a range of products, the company believes that it has a treasure trove of information that can be put to right use.
For instance, Bing, which is the official search engine by the tech giant and is used by millions of people across various demography, gives access to information such as the frequency of searches, likes and dislikes, amongst others. The amount of information is quite significant and the company is aiming to make it structured in terms of demographic, psychographic, interests and intent categorisation, to use it better for customer engagement.
Collecting this information on customer behaviour and their various browsing patterns however doesn’t directly translate to introducing new features right now and that the company is still planning in that direction to determine what information it wants to make available and how.
