The Technology -- Academics -- Policy (TAP) site, brings together academics from different US institutions, including Harvard University, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to security, other issues on its agenda include intellectual property, antitrust, and economic growth centered around the knowledge economy. Its goal is to "promote academic research and generate substantive policy debate around these topics."
Microsoft is selecting the articles that are listed on the site, and is using a legal contractor to write summaries of them edited and approved by the authors. It also features a blog linked to this site that runs articles written by its own staff members and participating academics.
The site collects historical articles written over the past few years addressing stated topic areas. The privacy and security topic already contains several articles covering issues including security and censorship dating back as far as 2000. Selecting any of the security-related articles produces a summary of its main points, along with contact information for the author. However, the security articles themselves are not located on the site. Instead, clicking on the 'get the article' link takes you to a search for the article on Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Microsoft is no stranger to the concept of policy lobbying. It already operates a subsection of its site called Freedom to Innovate, which includes a membership scheme and direction on several policy areas identified as key to Microsoft, including security, privacy, and combating spam.