Microsoft’s New Internet Ad Product: Selling Your Information

Dan Fost:

The new tool will allow advertisers to buy not just keywords but also the demographics of the person searching on those keywords.

MSN can do that most effectively when the search is conducted by a registered user who has already provided some personal details to the site. MSN attracts more than 380 million unique users worldwide per month.

This means that MSN, Hotmail and other Microsoft property users search & click data is aggregated, then sold to advertisers.