Windows Live Contacts Control (Beta)
About the Contacts Control
The Contacts Control allows users to share selected Windows Live contacts with other Web sites. For example, instead of typing a shipping address into a shopping cart form, the user could simply select one of their Windows Live Contacts from the Contact control. The user saves time and effort in completing the order, and you gain the benefits of an address book for your Web site without having to implement, maintain, and provision data storage and management UI on your servers. The user maintains control of their personal contact data, while you focus on providing services with data the user gives you or the contacts you provide the user. (Read the privacy notice for the Windows Live Contacts control.)
A key aspect of this control is maintaining secure data isolation between multiple domains. The control obtains the user's contacts data from Windows Live servers via a secure HTTPS connection and releases to your Web page only the data for the contacts that the user selects and approves for sharing with your Web page. When writing information to a user's contacts, the user is first prompted to approve the information, which is then transmitted to Windows Live servers via a secure HTTPS connection. In this way, users stay in control of their data, which offers them a level of confidence in dealing with third-party Web sites. Your Web site needs to make a clear statement to the user about how you will be using the data they share with you. The Windows Live Contacts control requires that you supply a URL to a privacy statement and display that URL to the end user when they are prompted to approve transfer of the selected contact data to your site. If you use the shared data only for the current activity and then discard it, you should say so in your privacy statement. If you store the shared data on your servers for any purpose, you should say so in your privacy statement and provide means for the user to review or delete such stored data.
Given the growing governmental regulations worldwide concerning the handling of personal data (and all the disclosures that go with it), it's much simpler for Web sites to use the contact data for the current activity, and then discard it.
Try Out the Contacts Control