The gaming industry is a huge one consisting of millions upon millions of players of different races, cultures, gender, preferences, age, location, and so on. In fact this is a pretty huge demographic that can be tapped into for all sorts of research, but at the same time it can also be used for political agendas, which is what Microsoft could be thinking of.
According to a report from the Washington Post, they claim that Microsoft has been working with CPAC and are pushing the idea of possibly using Xbox Live gamertags and public information to help build a database in which it can be used to target political ads on your dashboard, Skype, and MSN.
Like we said earlier, gamers are a mix of people from different cultures, background, races, gender, and so on, which would make it a great way for politicians to cater their ads to. In fact in the past Microsoft has invited President Obama and Mitt Romney to advertise on their Xbox platform and even streamed their debates, so this will not be the first time that Microsoft will be using the Xbox platform for political purposes.
Of course in a way this is a little ironic, given that Microsoft’s Scroogled campaign in the past has made fun of Google and how Google apparently shares their information with the government, so we really don’t see how sharing Xbox Live gamertags and such will be any different.
In any case what do gamers think? Would you be happy if Microsoft were to share your information to help them market the idea to politicians who are looking for spaces to advertise themselves on?