Windows Live and Bing Bar data collection is part of an effort to make our products better. By gathering information about how you use our software and services, we hope to improve their quality and performance, to make them more relevant to your needs, and to help prevent spam and phishing scams from reaching your inbox.

This is a voluntary program. You don't have to participate.

Sometime after installing Windows Live Essentials or Bing Bar, you'll be asked if you want to help us improve our products. Microsoft respects your choice about participating. We won't start collecting data for this program until we notify you and ask your permission.

The data we collect is confidential and won't be used to contact you. If you agree to participate, we'll collect information about your computer and how you use Windows Live. If you install Bing Bar as part of Windows Live Essentials and you agree to participate, we'll also collect information about how you use Bing Bar, your searches, and the websites you visit. Information we collect may also be used to personalize content for you.

If you change your mind after we ask your permission, you can change your data collection setting for Windows Live Essentials by changing the Help improve Windows Live setting in the options of any Windows Live program. You'll need to opt out of data collection from Bing Bar separately. To learn how to change your data collection settings for Bing Bar, see Bing Bar Help.