6 ms·

It's a good acquisition in that it's a great product used by many people. I can't help thinking about the privacy angle - Microsoft gets to capture everything

It's a good acquisition in that it's a great product used by many people. I can't help thinking about the privacy angle - Microsoft gets to capture everything you type into your Android keyboard. And yes I wear my tinfoil hat often.

tempestn 11y ago
Not only that; you can (significantly) enhance SwiftKey's predictions by giving it access to the archives of your gmail, facebook, etc. accounts. One would hope that Microsoft would at least use that data in an anonymized fashion, but regardless, the value would obviously be huge. I was surprised it wasn't listed in the article where it outlined the the value Microsoft would get from the purchase.
- matthewcford 11y ago
  Having worked on this, the data is converted into your own personalised language model per account and then sent down to the app (at least when we worked on it, the data wasn't aggregated/stored).
executesorder66 11y ago
I was very upset when I saw this. It took me forever to find the right "keyboard" for my phone, and now Microsoft owns it.
- tn13 11y ago
  Honestly, I think Microsoft or any large company on FCC's radar and media's radar is better option than some company in a distant country.
  - executesorder66 11y ago
    And how has being on the FCC's radar stopped Microsoft from their unethical spying and total lack of concern for people's privacy? (mainly via Win10)
  - eloisant 11y ago
    I'm in Europe, the US is a more distant country than UK, both from a geographical and legal point of view. Plus there's NSA and shady government practices in US (even though UK is probably sharing whatever they can with the NSA).
    - tn13 11y ago
      Yes, as a person from UK you should absolutely be worried about US government's shady and unethical practices and put pressure on your government to pass various laws that would protect you.
- rplnt 11y ago
  You use Android by Google and you worry about Microsoft?
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Last time I checked, SwiftKey had an explicit option to cloud sync your data, or keep it device-only. I am not sure if any newer versions of SwiftKey have removed it, but that's always been a specific choice I've made on SwiftKey installs.
- ionised 11y ago
  I did that too, but I'm checking for that option now (after a few SwiftKey updates) and I cannot seem to find it in the application.
- bonoboTP 11y ago
  Since it is a proprietary software, did you reverse engineer it to see if it really does what you think? Or have you used some packet sniffer, like Wireshark and analyzed the network traffic extensively? Unless you do those things, you're still at their mercy. Not that it matters too much, since Google already has access to anything you do on your Android phone, and I don't think Microsoft is "worse" than them...
  - petra 11y ago
    We don't know Microsoft isn't worse. And even of it isn't maybe it's better to limit the number of companies with extensive collection of our personal data.
    - scholia 11y ago
      We don't know that Microsoft is worse, but we do know that Google's entire business is based on surveillance and personalized advertising, and that it's an insignificant part of Microsoft's business.
      - petra 11y ago
        That's true. But their efforts in that direction are very significant. And we know that AI tech requires massive data collection. And microsoft seems determined as ever to improve Bing(and Bing ads). And Bing Ads(which is also responsible for Yahoo's search ads) , according to some reports , may have 20% of the U.S. search ads market. And leaving money aside, Bing and Bing ads may be of strategic importance to Microsoft. So if microsoft would have chance to sell our data to advertisers , it will do so , i have no doubt. Also they could have easily marketed Bing as a search engine with higher privacy level, or at least higher privacy level for sensitive stuff like medical etc. But they didn't.

tempestn 11y ago

Not only that; you can (significantly) enhance SwiftKey's predictions by giving it access to the archives of your gmail, facebook, etc. accounts. One would hope that Microsoft would at least use that data in an anonymized fashion, but regardless, the value would obviously be huge. I was surprised it wasn't listed in the article where it outlined the the value Microsoft would get from the purchase.

matthewcford 11y ago
Having worked on this, the data is converted into your own personalised language model per account and then sent down to the app (at least when we worked on it, the data wasn't aggregated/stored).

executesorder66 11y ago

I was very upset when I saw this. It took me forever to find the right "keyboard" for my phone, and now Microsoft owns it.

tn13 11y ago
Honestly, I think Microsoft or any large company on FCC's radar and media's radar is better option than some company in a distant country.
- executesorder66 11y ago
  And how has being on the FCC's radar stopped Microsoft from their unethical spying and total lack of concern for people's privacy? (mainly via Win10)
- eloisant 11y ago
  I'm in Europe, the US is a more distant country than UK, both from a geographical and legal point of view. Plus there's NSA and shady government practices in US (even though UK is probably sharing whatever they can with the NSA).
  - tn13 11y ago
    Yes, as a person from UK you should absolutely be worried about US government's shady and unethical practices and put pressure on your government to pass various laws that would protect you.
rplnt 11y ago
You use Android by Google and you worry about Microsoft?

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

Last time I checked, SwiftKey had an explicit option to cloud sync your data, or keep it device-only. I am not sure if any newer versions of SwiftKey have removed it, but that's always been a specific choice I've made on SwiftKey installs.

ionised 11y ago
I did that too, but I'm checking for that option now (after a few SwiftKey updates) and I cannot seem to find it in the application.
bonoboTP 11y ago
Since it is a proprietary software, did you reverse engineer it to see if it really does what you think? Or have you used some packet sniffer, like Wireshark and analyzed the network traffic extensively? Unless you do those things, you're still at their mercy. Not that it matters too much, since Google already has access to anything you do on your Android phone, and I don't think Microsoft is "worse" than them...
- petra 11y ago
  We don't know Microsoft isn't worse. And even of it isn't maybe it's better to limit the number of companies with extensive collection of our personal data.
  - scholia 11y ago
    We don't know that Microsoft is worse, but we do know that Google's entire business is based on surveillance and personalized advertising, and that it's an insignificant part of Microsoft's business.
    - petra 11y ago
      That's true. But their efforts in that direction are very significant. And we know that AI tech requires massive data collection. And microsoft seems determined as ever to improve Bing(and Bing ads). And Bing Ads(which is also responsible for Yahoo's search ads) , according to some reports , may have 20% of the U.S. search ads market. And leaving money aside, Bing and Bing ads may be of strategic importance to Microsoft. So if microsoft would have chance to sell our data to advertisers , it will do so , i have no doubt. Also they could have easily marketed Bing as a search engine with higher privacy level, or at least higher privacy level for sensitive stuff like medical etc. But they didn't.