We fully respect users' privacy, he said in a statement

Sep 29, 2015 06:35 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft's Windows boss Terry Myerson rolled out a lengthy blog post a few hours ago to dismiss comments that the company might be spying on its users with Windows 10, but in a separate interview, the man now in charge of the operating system unit at the Redmond giant says that it's hard to earn customers' trust.

Myerson told CNN Money that one of the biggest problems in convincing users that their privacy isn't violated in Windows 10 is that the operating system needs access to personal information in order to unleash its full potential.

Cortana, for example, can only work if it has access to location and can improve with personalized recommendations and suggestions based on what she can learn by tracking users' daily routine and activities.

In order to show how difficult it actually is to handle privacy these days, Myerson pointed to the built-in Windows 10 Mail client. In order for users to get their email messages on their desktops, Microsoft must obviously get access to the account, so usernames and passwords need to be provided in the Mail app.

The email example

And yet, Myerson says that absolutely no email is being accessed by anyone at Microsoft and everything is fully secure. But how do you convince users that nothing's happening since they know that the company needs access to the email account to deliver them new messages?

"We're not reading your email, but we have custody of your email," he said. "How do you distill those two things?"

Speaking about trust and the way Microsoft's trying to earn it, Myerson explained that no other company out there is working so closely with their users and every suggestions they receive is analyzed by the team in charge.

"Trust is a core pillar of our 'More Personal Computing' vision, and we know we have to earn it. I assure you that no other company is more committed, more transparent and listening harder to customers on this important topic than we are."

Despite Microsoft's reassuring of users that their privacy is fully protected, many are still worried that personal information might be leaving their computers. Microsoft says that only anonymous device data and crash reports are collected and, what's more, everything's encrypted and stored in secure servers.