Windows Live Contacts Gadget Beta

Danny Thorpe of the Windows Live Platform team has announced on his blog the debut of a browser JavaScript object designed to create a bridge between user Windows Live contacts with Websites outside of Microsoft's sphere. The data integration process with third party Websites is performed through a HTTPS connection and Microsoft has placed control firmly in the hands of the end user who is able to decide the amount of information shared with a non-Microsoft site. The Redmond Company is referring to this option as: "a key aspect of this gadget is maintaining secure data isolation between multiple domains."

Thorpe stated that the contact gadget was designed to expand the use of the 14 billion contact records amassed by the 240 million Hotmail and Messenger user outside the respective services. The gadget transfers the user contact information directly to the third party source as part of online transactions, independent of web server, and functioning with the majority of Web browsers.

"The contact gadget aggregates UI and contact data across multiple domains without requiring any special server support - it's all done on the browser client, in JavaScript. Normally, if you wanted to splice data from another server into your web page, you'd need to implement some sort of logic on your web server to handle relaying the data from the other server to your browser through your domain. For sensitive data you'd also need to work out some agreement with the data provider so that your server could access the data on behalf of the end user. The Windows Live Contacts Gadget is a step in the direction of user data accompanying users as they wander freely between web sites. The data is within easy reach of the user, but not available to a web site until the user selects exactly which data to submit to the web site," described Thorpe.