Last updated July 2003

Microsoft is committed to protecting your privacy. To help you make an informed choice regarding your privacy, Microsoft publishes privacy statements that disclose what information is collected, how that information is used, and what privacy controls exist.

This Privacy Statement applies to Microsoft® Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003 (Producer); it does not apply to other online or offline Microsoft Web sites, products, or services. Other Microsoft Web sites, products, and services may have their own privacy statements. The following topics will be covered in this Privacy Statement:

• What personally identifiable information does Producer gather from you?
• What personally identifiable information does Producer collect from PowerPoint?
• What information does Producer send across the Internet?
• Changes to this Privacy Statement
• Contact information

What personally identifiable information does Producer gather from you?

To help identify the presentations you create, Producer lets you specify information about your presentation such as a title, presenter’s name, an image that will appear on the introduction page of your presentation, and a summary description. If you enter personally identifiable information such as your full name, address, or phone number for the introduction page of your presentation, anyone who has access to your published presentations can view this personal information. Therefore, do not enter any personal information that you do not want others to see when they are watching your presentation.

By default, Producer sets the presenter name to the full name of the current user. If you do not want this name to be stored in your published presentation, you should change the name by using the following procedure:

To change the presenter name that will be used in your project and published presentation

1. Start Producer.
2. On the View menu, click Table of Contents tab, and then click the Presenter (optional) box.
3. Type a new presenter name or delete the current name if you do not want a presenter’s name to be displayed in the published presentation.

What personally identifiable information does Producer collect from PowerPoint?

When you import PowerPoint presentations into Producer, the slides are converted automatically to Web pages to use in your current project and ultimately in your published presentation. During this process, metadata is stored in the HTML code generated for each slide, and can be viewed by anyone who has access to your published presentation. The metadata is generated from the following information entered in PowerPoint:

• Slide notes   Any notes you enter in PowerPoint are stored in the converted PowerPoint slides used in your final Producer presentation.
• PowerPoint presentation file name   The PowerPoint presentation file name is stored in the converted PowerPoint slides used in your final Producer presentation.
• PowerPoint presentation file properties   Information that appears in the Properties dialog box in PowerPoint can be viewed by anyone who has access to your Producer presentation. This includes information that is entered automatically in PowerPoint such as the title, author, and company name, as well as additional property information you may have entered in the Properties dialog box in PowerPoint. If you enter personally-identifiable information such as your full name, address, or phone number in any of the places mentioned above, it can be viewed by anyone who has access to your Producer presentation. To view, edit, or delete the current properties for your presentation, start PowerPoint, and then on the File menu, click Properties.
• Slide contents   Any information displayed in the PowerPoint slides can be viewed by your audience.

You can remove your personal information from the PowerPoint presentation file properties by using the following procedure:

To remove personal information from a PowerPoint presentation file

1. Start PowerPoint.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Security tab.
3. In Privacy options, select the Remove personal information from file properties on save check box.
   This removes the Author, Manager, Company, and Last Saved By properties from the PowerPoint presentation file.

For additional information about PowerPoint privacy, see PowerPoint Help.

What information does Producer send across the Internet?

Producer has tightly integrated Internet capabilities to provide you with a rich set of features, such as the ability to publish presentations to a non-Microsoft e-service provider on the Internet. The information that Producer sends across the Internet depends on the feature being used and the current privacy settings. These features are explained in the following sections.

Non-Microsoft e-service providers

Producer enables you to publish your presentation to the Internet by using the services of non-Microsoft e-service providers. When you select the Web server publishing option in the Publish Wizard, Producer prepares to publish your presentation to a remote server. In the Publish Wizard, you can view a complete list of files that are included in your presentation, which will be sent to the provider. You can review this list before you publish your presentation to the provider’s server.

If you click the Learn More button in the Publish Wizard, your geographic region and language settings are sent to Microsoft.com to launch a Web page with a current listing of non-Microsoft e-service providers available in your geographic region or country. The Web page you are sent to is based on your current Regional and Language settings in Control Panel. This information is then stored in the Local Settings for the current user.

When you publish a presentation to a non-Microsoft e-service provider through the Internet, the e-service provider may request a user name and password. In some cases, the e-service provider may request additional information as well. The use of this information is determined by the e-service provider. These e-service providers are typically independent companies and are not associated with Microsoft. You should contact your provider if you have any questions regarding their handling of this information.

After you have selected an e-service provider in the Publish Wizard, the provider has access to the metadata that appears on the introduction page whether you complete the steps to publish your presentation or not. Therefore, do not enter any personal information in the Introduction page area on the Table of Contents tab in Producer that you do not want the e-service provider to be able to access or view.

Cookies

Producer uses the Internet as a networking and information source. Whenever you access a Web site on the Internet, the site may download cookies to your computer. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a Web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content and eases site navigation. When you return to the Web site, the information you previously provided is retrieved, so you can easily use the site's features that you customized.

Producer cookies

The Microsoft.com Web site will store a cookie on your computer whenever Producer communicates with Microsoft.com (for example, when you select Microsoft Producer Online from the Help menu). To understand what information is stored in this cookie and how that information is used, see the Microsoft Privacy Web site.

In most browsers, you can prevent cookies from being stored on your computer. The following procedure shows you how to do this in Microsoft Internet Explorer:

To prevent all cookies from being stored on your computer in Internet Explorer

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Privacy tab.
3. Move the slider up to Block All Cookies. With this setting, Web sites will not be able to store cookies on your computer.

 Note   If you block all cookies, Web sites that use them may not function correctly. The next two Internet Explorer privacy levels, High and Medium High, may be more suitable. In addition, it is possible to block or allow a cookie for a specific site through the Edit button. For more information, see Internet Explorer Help.

Playback cookies

After you have published your presentation to the Web, anyone accessing your presentation to play it back on their computer will have a cookie downloaded from the Web site and stored on their computer. This cookie contains information such as the playback bit rate, the volume of the presentation, the title of the presentation, and the point where playback is stopped (which lets a user resume playback from that point at a later time). If you choose to preview your presentation after publishing it to the Web, your computer will receive a cookie of this type from the Web server.

Automatic codec download

If Producer determines that your computer does not have a required codec (that is, the piece of software that decodes a specific kind of compressed content), Producer will download it from a Microsoft Web site, depending on whether you are connected to the Internet and the codec is available. You can prevent a codec from being downloaded to your computer by clicking Cancel in the dialog box that appears prompting you to download a codec.

Presentation playback and privacy

Your audience can view your published Producer presentation in a Web browser, such as Internet Explorer. They must also have Microsoft Windows Media® Player. For complete system requirements, see Producer Help.

For information about Internet Explorer and privacy settings, see Internet Explorer Help. For information about Windows Media Player and privacy, see the Windows Media Player privacy statement at the Microsoft Windows Media Player Privacy Web site.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

Microsoft will occasionally update this Privacy Statement. When we do, we will revise the "last updated" date at the top of this Privacy Statement. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically to stay informed of how Microsoft is protecting your information.

Contact information

Microsoft welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Statement. If you believe that Microsoft has not adhered to this statement, please contact us by postal mail or e-mail, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.

Microsoft Producer Privacy
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Send e-mail to msprod@microsoft.com.