The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group are asking the FTC to look closely at Microsoft’s new set of adCenter services, a wide-ranging data-collection and ad-targeting scheme that they claim is deceptive and unfair to millions of users.

Microsoft’s use of data gleaned from its Hotmail service to sharpen its ad-targeting efforts, and those of its adCenter clients is drawing the groups’ ire.

“Microsoft, like Google and Yahoo, is actively rewriting the rules that govern the online marketplace,” declared Jeff Chester, CDD executive director. “It is the FTC’s job to make certain that these rules reflect more than corporate self-interest. The public interest matters, too, and it is the FTC’s responsibility to protect and promote that vital perspective, by issuing injunctions against the most egregious of the new invasive advertising practices, which are fully described in our complaint.”

The bottom line: these consumer groups are claiming tehcnologies like Web anlaytics are invasive to one’s privacy. I’ve heard these claims before, but I disagree with this complaint.

Click here to read more about the CDD’s beef.