"Microsoft bCentral pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons, sometimes called single-pixel gifs that allow bCentral to count users who have visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. bCentral may include web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or bCentral Newsletters in order to count how many messages have been opened and acted upon. Web beacons are not used to access your personally identifiable information on the bCentral network of sites and services; they are a technique we use to compile aggregated statistics about bCentral Web site usage. Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the Web beacon resides. bCentral Web pages may also contain Web beacons placed there by our advertising partners to help bCentral determine the effectiveness of our Internet advertising campaigns.