What is phishing?
Online phishing is a technique used to trick computer users into revealing personal or financial information through an e-mail message or website. A common online phishing scam starts with an e mail message that appears to come from a trusted source but actually directs you to provide information to a fraudulent website. Phishing Filter is designed to warn you if you're visiting websites that display phishing characteristics or that have been reported to Microsoft as fraudulent.
Phishing Filter is designed to warn you if the website you are visiting might be impersonating a trusted website. Phishing Filter does this by first checking the address of the website you are visiting against a list of website addresses stored on your computer that have been reported to Microsoft as legitimate ("legitimate list").
The first time you attempt to visit a website that is not on the legitimate list, you will be asked whether you would like to have Phishing Filter automatically check all websites you visit. If you opt in, addresses that are not on the legitimate list will be sent to Microsoft and checked against a frequently updated list of websites that have been reported to Microsoft as phishing, suspicious, or legitimate websites. You may also choose to use Phishing Filter manually to verify individual sites as you visit them.
Information collected, processed, or transmitted
When you use Phishing Filter to check websites automatically or manually, the addresses of the websites that you visit are sent to Microsoft, together with some standard information from your computer such as Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, and Phishing Filter version number. To help protect your privacy, the address information sent to Microsoft is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and is limited to the domain and path of the website. Other information that may be associated with the address, such as search terms, data you entered in forms, or cookies, is not sent.
For example, if you visit the MSN Search website at http://search.msn.com and enter "weather" as the search term, instead of sending the full address "http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=weather&FORM=QBHP," Phishing Filter removes the search term and sends only "http://search.msn.com/results.aspx." Address strings might unintentionally contain personal information, but Microsoft does not use the information to identify you or contact you. If you are concerned that an address string might contain personal or confidential information, you should not report the site.
Anonymous statistics about your usage of Phishing Filter, such as the duration and total number of websites browsed since an address was sent to Microsoft for analysis, are also sent to Microsoft.
Use of information
The information described above is used to analyze the performance and improve the quality of the Phishing Filter service. Microsoft does not use the information it receives to personally identify you.
Some URLS that are sent might be saved to be included in the legitimate list and then provided as client updates. When URLs are saved, additional information such as Phishing Filter and operating system version information, as well as your browser language, is saved.
Choice and control
If you choose the recommended settings during Windows Vista setup, you turn on automatic website checking with Phishing Filter. You can also turn Phishing Filter on or off in Internet Explorer.
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In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, click Phishing Filter, and then click Phishing Filter Settings.
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In the list of options, scroll to the Phishing Filter section under Security, click Disable Phishing Filter, and then click OK.
Phishing Filter will no longer check for or warn you about phishing sites that you might visit.
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