3 ms·

> I totally understand, though about trust. We've been asking users for feedback for 20+ years, I hope we've shown ourselves to be good actors! I don't believe

> I totally understand, though about trust. We've been asking users for feedback for 20+ years, I hope we've shown ourselves to be good actors! I don't believe you have, sorry (Microsoft I mean, not you specifically). I get the impression Microsoft is the same company it always was, only now it's better at convincing the gullible that it is on their side. That Windows 10 update prompt for previous Windows versions were obnoxious and downright deceitful, making the 20+ years old traditional 'close window' X in the corner of the window actually download the update instead of doing what users expect it to do. That's before we even get onto the subject of Windows 10's draconian privacy policies and use of dark patterns all over the OS designed to get people to disable their privacy settings. Of course, even if they don't fall for tricks like coloring the 'privacy customisation options' link during installation a slightly different colour of blue than the background of the window to make it deliberately hard to read, they will still likely have all their privacy options reset and have previously removed crapware like Candy Crush added all over again in a forced update. I'm on a Pro version of Windows 10 and I can't even disable the telemetry and constant phoning home every time I launch an application and or encounter a problem (that I absolutely do not need help with) with something I'm running. I could understand this crap with the Home version. Not on Pro which I fully expected to have a degree of control over like I did with Win7 pro. As a result of all this, Microsoft finally made my shit list after decades of shady behaviour and anti-competitive business practices and I won't be buying or using anything by them going forward. Hell I even started PC gaming on Linux, that's how much I dislike the things Microsoft does.

Silhouette 7y ago
I'm a little late to this party, but I couldn't agree more (except that I'm in the fortunate position of making decisions about my businesses, so we can decide not to use Windows 10 at all for much the same reasons). We also don't use VS Code at all, for one simple reason: we tried to determine what the privacy policy actually was, and we couldn't. In particular, there appeared to be wording among the various indirectly linked documents that implied Microsoft might at some point upload our source code without our knowledge or consent, with no guarantees and nothing to indicate how it would or might then be used. Combine that with an organisation that has a recent deliberate strategy of pushing updates whether wanted or not, collecting data whether volunteered or not, and attempting to coerce or deceive users into accepting those things whether it's in their interest to do so or not, and unfortunately while certain people who work for Microsoft and comment here may have no ill intent, it simply isn't safe to trust the company as a whole with the same benefit of the doubt.
- TheIronYuppie 7y ago
  Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ We _only_ collect telemetry data. NEVER user data. And you can opt out! (it's right there during set up - or you can go here - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di...). Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law!
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website Unfortunately, if you go down that rabbit hole (which we did before) it follows various redirect links and ends up at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement, which is a generic document that changes frequently and includes by reference ambiguous additional product-specific documents that may or may not exist. What you need here is an absolutely clear, unambiguous statement to the effect that you will never under any circumstances upload our source code or other proprietary data to any external system without our explicit opt-in. It's really that simple. Otherwise, I'm afraid those of us working under commercial confidentiality agreements or other legal controls are just going to run away. Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law! Perhaps you could explain to me how to turn off the telemetry in Windows 10 then? Or for that matter how consent was obtained for the telemetry that was silently added to earlier Windows versions after release by anyone who installed Microsoft's recommended updates? I appreciate that your personal intentions may be honest and good here, but the simple fact is that your organisation has a very clear, very bad track record at this in recent years, and its senior leadership has not only been entirely unretentant about that policy despite widespread criticism but actively doubled down on it. Anything Microsoft does will naturally be contaminated by that history now, unless as a minimum it makes a clear, legally actionable statement and/or imposes verifiable technical measures to guarantee different behaviour.
    - 7y ago

Silhouette 7y ago

I'm a little late to this party, but I couldn't agree more (except that I'm in the fortunate position of making decisions about my businesses, so we can decide not to use Windows 10 at all for much the same reasons). We also don't use VS Code at all, for one simple reason: we tried to determine what the privacy policy actually was, and we couldn't. In particular, there appeared to be wording among the various indirectly linked documents that implied Microsoft might at some point upload our source code without our knowledge or consent, with no guarantees and nothing to indicate how it would or might then be used. Combine that with an organisation that has a recent deliberate strategy of pushing updates whether wanted or not, collecting data whether volunteered or not, and attempting to coerce or deceive users into accepting those things whether it's in their interest to do so or not, and unfortunately while certain people who work for Microsoft and comment here may have no ill intent, it simply isn't safe to trust the company as a whole with the same benefit of the doubt.

TheIronYuppie 7y ago
Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ We _only_ collect telemetry data. NEVER user data. And you can opt out! (it's right there during set up - or you can go here - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di...). Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law!
- Silhouette 7y ago
  Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website Unfortunately, if you go down that rabbit hole (which we did before) it follows various redirect links and ends up at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement, which is a generic document that changes frequently and includes by reference ambiguous additional product-specific documents that may or may not exist. What you need here is an absolutely clear, unambiguous statement to the effect that you will never under any circumstances upload our source code or other proprietary data to any external system without our explicit opt-in. It's really that simple. Otherwise, I'm afraid those of us working under commercial confidentiality agreements or other legal controls are just going to run away. Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law! Perhaps you could explain to me how to turn off the telemetry in Windows 10 then? Or for that matter how consent was obtained for the telemetry that was silently added to earlier Windows versions after release by anyone who installed Microsoft's recommended updates? I appreciate that your personal intentions may be honest and good here, but the simple fact is that your organisation has a very clear, very bad track record at this in recent years, and its senior leadership has not only been entirely unretentant about that policy despite widespread criticism but actively doubled down on it. Anything Microsoft does will naturally be contaminated by that history now, unless as a minimum it makes a clear, legally actionable statement and/or imposes verifiable technical measures to guarantee different behaviour.
  - 7y ago