MS: When in Doubt, Black it Out

While its timing may be purely coincidental, Microsoft earlier this week released an add-in for Microsoft Word that enables users to mark sections of a document for redaction. Redaction is a process used by governments and corporations to black out certain sections of text in a document in order to protect sensitive or potentially damaging information.

Microsoft may have used the add-in to redact text in documents released Tuesday relating to its lawsuit with Google, where most of the words except for "MSN," "Longhorn" and "Google" were blacked out. Microsoft urges caution in using the plug-in, however: "We recommend that you carefully review any documents redacted using this tool to confirm that all the information that you intended to redact was successfully redacted."