Microsoft uses data about you — including your browsing history, search queries, location, and interests — to show you personalised advertisements across its products and partner networks.
This analysis describes what Microsoft's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
Your online behaviour across Microsoft's ecosystem is aggregated to build an advertising profile used to target you with ads, which may include data from multiple services you use.
The updated policy establishes additional grounds on which Microsoft may retain personal data. While the prior version tied retention to specific user expectations and available deletion controls, the revised language authorizes retention for 'operating our business, meeting our contractual and legal obligations, improving and developing our products and services, protecting the safety and security of our systems and customers, and resolving disputes.' This expands the stated purposes beyond transaction fulfillment and legal compliance. The updated policy directs users to product-specific documentation for retention details rather than providing explicit deletion procedures and timelines in the privacy statement itself.
View change record →The updated policy now grounds data retention in five broad business purposes: operating the business, meeting contractual and legal obligations, improving and developing products and services, protecting system and customer safety, and resolving disputes. Previously, the policy articulated specific criteria for determining retention periods, including customer expectations for retention until manual deletion, availability of automated deletion controls, and data sensitivity. The revised language removes these granular criteria and instead requires users to consult individual product documentation to understand when their specific data will be deleted. This shifts the burden of finding retention timelines from the main policy statement to separate product-specific documents.
View change record →The updated Privacy Statement removes previously stated language about additional rights available to European Economic Area users, narrowing the policy's explicit protections in that region. Simultaneously, the revised terms now explicitly authorize Microsoft to contact users via auto-dialer and prerecorded voice for marketing purposes, provided the user has consented to receive marketing communications to the phone number supplied. This establishes Microsoft's contractual permission to initiate automated marketing calls using artificial intelligence-generated voice technology where user consent to marketing contact has been given.
View change record →Microsoft collects extensive personal data — including location, voice recordings, typed content, browsing history, and health-related data — across its entire product ecosystem, and uses this data for personalised advertising, product improvement, and AI model training. Data may be shared with third-party partners, advertisers, and other Microsoft-affiliated companies, and some data may be retained even after account deletion. You can review, download, or delete your personal data by visiting account.microsoft.com/privacy and adjusting settings via the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard.
Cross-platform context
See how other platforms handle Targeted Advertising Using Personal Data and similar clauses.
Compare across platforms →Monitoring
Microsoft has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 25 platforms.
Targeted advertising based on behavioural profiling engages GDPR consent requirements under Art. 6(1)(a) and CCPA opt-out rights under Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.120; compliance teams should verify whether Microsoft's ad personalisation constitutes 'sale' or 'sharing' of personal information under CCPA.
Full compliance analysis
Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
Free: track 1 platform + weekly digest. Monitor: 25 platforms + same-day alerts. No credit card required.
Search "[your state] attorney general consumer complaint" to find your state's direct complaint form
Compliance Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Compliance includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
Your online behaviour across Microsoft's ecosystem is aggregated to build an advertising profile used to target you with ads, which may include data from multiple services you use.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft.