Is this mircrosoft survey legit.

[SuperCookie78]

I was taking a survey to get free premium currency in a game. and the survey was about something interesting, the windows 10 taskbar. The survey sent me to a microsoft page that had was labeled prototype. it showed that the taskbar would add programs based on your web history and after updates. Is this a legit survey? the domain is ux.microsoft.com. I have provided the links to the prototype pages. If this is real, is this enough make a Tech News post? 

 

Link 1

Link 2

[Roswell]

This is how companies judge whether customers would be receptive to certain changes. Microsoft is likely running hundreds of different studies just like this one, almost all of them will never see the light of day.

 

While interesting, I don't think it's newsworthy.

[Kisai]

The survey is probably legit. The the thing to keep in mind is that these "survey for game currency" type of things are bait and sell your personal information.

[SuperCookie78]

Just now, Kisai said:

The survey is probably legit. The the thing to keep in mind is that these "survey for game currency" type of things are bait and sell your personal information.

the servey didn't ask for personal information just questioned on windows 10 or the taskbar change

[Kisai]

Just now, SuperCookie78 said:

the servey didn't ask for personal information just questioned on windows 10 or the taskbar change

If you get a benefit from it, your personal information was sold at some point from the survey provider to the survey requester. Otherwise people would just fill the surveys up with garbage to get their game currency over and over again.

[Roswell]

14 minutes ago, Kisai said:

If you get a benefit from it, your personal information was sold at some point from the survey provider to the survey requester. Otherwise people would just fill the surveys up with garbage to get their game currency over and over again.

That's not exactly true, typically studies ask for general demographics and are then entangled in numerous laws forcing the data to be anonymous. If you ever read a brief from a university study or from one like OP is talking about, the legal language is there.

[Syaoran]

Not too sure but the CNAME of ux.microsoft.com is uxmicrosoftprod.uxmicrosoft.p.azurewebsites.net 

Which urlscan states it's malicious https://urlscan.io/result/029877b5-afb5-4390-9d05-e85e52730793

 

The weird thing is that the AS is MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US

Link 1 results: https://urlscan.io/result/6169c5a5-2f87-40d7-895e-8ac39304a775

Link 2: https://urlscan.io/result/eeeb8eb3-8bf7-476c-90af-323dfc8e1079

 

With the AS being MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US maybe it's legit?

How did you find this survey?

 

[Kisai]

23 minutes ago, Syaoran said:

Not too sure but the CNAME of ux.microsoft.com is uxmicrosoftprod.uxmicrosoft.p.azurewebsites.net 

Which urlscan states it's malicious https://urlscan.io/result/029877b5-afb5-4390-9d05-e85e52730793

 

The weird thing is that the AS is MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US

Link 1 results: https://urlscan.io/result/6169c5a5-2f87-40d7-895e-8ac39304a775

Link 2: https://urlscan.io/result/eeeb8eb3-8bf7-476c-90af-323dfc8e1079

 

With the AS being MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US maybe it's legit?

How did you find this survey?

 

You're mis-interpreting what you're reading there. A CNAME can point to any arbitrary DNS name, and Microsoft runs the Azure cloud service, so the survey is probably run by an internal department. But they're still paying someone to actually do the work of marketing it through channels like the game coins.

 

It's basically "what did you think you were doing?" Nobody reads the ToS to these. 

 

One or the other is true:

a) The game you are playing sold the survey company information that the survey wants in exchange for real money. That was in turned credited to your game as whatever the premium game currency is. Most games that do this make the players spam the hell out of these surveys and they amount to pennies.

b) The survey operator pays a third party to market the survey and they do the filtering, of which this game opt'd in for matching the marketing parameters. So Microsoft might not have the personal information, but the survey company has whatever information you volunteered/were required to enter when you signed up.

 

Either way you agreed to give the survey company something by accessing the survey. Notice what happens when you get to the end of the link, it gives you a number to put into the survey company's site.