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Microsoft Advertisement Inc.
- sm4rk0 7y agoAdvertisement is not a cause of the problem. It's just an effect of a deeper one. The cause and effect chain goes like this: money-based world -> profit-oriented economy -> advertising.
- Nextgrid 7y agoThere are ways of making money ethically, and failing that, legislation is there to keep things in check. This is why (in most of the developed world, at least) you don't see people in the street fighting & robbing each other all the time.
- sm4rk0 7y agoLegislation (laws) doesn't (always) protect ethic principles https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-law-and-ethics.html https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-law-and-ethics... This means you can act unethically and legally at the same time.
- Nextgrid 7y agoI agree it's not 100% perfect, and things do slip through the cracks; including in cases of big tech companies that move too fast compared to legislation and so can get away with what is essentially large-scale fraud, tax evasion, privacy violations, etc. But the idea is if the market itself cannot solve the problem and it's causing significant harm to society then legislation is supposed to step in to prevent the behaviour deemed harmful.
- minusf 7y agoWindows is a sold product with no free tier. isn't that the profit? it was part of the price I paid for the notebook. and they still make me see ads? that's a business model publishing would die for.
- sm4rk0 7y agoPublishing arrived there first. You're paying to buy newspapers and magazines but they still make you see ads.
- acqq 7y agoThe link from the PDF booklet targeted to those who would buy Microsoft's ad services: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us?s_int=en-us-gct-web-src_pdf-sub_0-cam_ic_scj_flx_chptr2 https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us?s_int=en-us-gct-web-sr... "Sign up for a Microsoft Advertising account to take advantage of these tools or get in touch with an account representative. If you already have a Microsoft Advertising account, log in or talk to your account representative about how to be a High Performer" which leads one to, as the author writes, the page with the first picture of "a couple of dudes snooping on animals, taking pictures and analyzing them while on Safari." I don't think the choice of the photo is irrelevant.
- tomglynch 7y ago> "a couple of dudes snooping on animals, taking pictures and analyzing them while on Safari." > I don't think the choice of the photo is irrelevant. Irrelevant. Safari isn't available on windows. Edge, Chrome or Firefox would be relevant.
- acqq 7y agoDid capitalization mislead you, is it an attempt to be funny or even something else? "This article is about the type of overland journey. For the web browser, see Safari (web browser). For other uses, see Safari (disambiguation)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari "A safari /səˈfɑːri/ (Swahili: safari) is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists in Africa. In the past, the trip was often a big-game hunt, but today, safaris are often to observe and photograph wildlife—or hiking and sightseeing, as well." In this context the "dudes" with the binoculars are the clients of Microsoft who pay Microsoft organizing them the "safari" privilege to snoop the "normal users" ("animals") living their lives.
- nroets 7y agoMicrosoft had the dominant consumer operating system since the 1980s. Using that advantage (and not innovation and quality !) they were able to grab substantial chunks of other markets: Word processing, commercial compilers, cloud computing etc. Next up is digital assistants and advertising. What is the alternative for average consumers ? Chrome books ?
- jk3faster 7y ago> What is the alternative for average consumers ? Chrome books ? GNU/Linux! Any mainstream beginner friendly GNU/Linux distribution like Linux Mint or Ubuntu will be descent enough for average consumers. Unless you are heavily dependent on Adobe softwares(even then, you can consider dual boot), they are now much more elegant than windows. Getting quality support from forums is actually much easier with GNU/Linux. Last time when I had a problem with Windows 10, where everything saved to C:/ would disappear after restart, I was unable to get any useful support from their forums. On the other had, most problems I encounter while using a linux distribution is just a search away! I'm currently using Arch linux(before that I used Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora etc...), and my less technically inclined family uses Elementary OS. Try a linux distribution like Linux Mint or Kubuntu. It's worth the time!
- nroets 7y agoYes, personally I dual boot Ubuntu and Windows. But the problem is that many organizations I deal with are reinforcing Microsoft dominance by e.g. emailing me PDFs that only Acroread can open. If I want to fight these issues, I may need to resort to name dropping (Google, Apple) and other tactics.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago> emailing me PDFs that only Acroread can open Please post any examples of those to the evince project as a bug report.
- yrro 7y ago
- jkonline 7y agoI agree that more data crunch-n-munching would make a nice feature-set for GlassWire. It still always makes my list of must-have installations though. ... "GlassWire 2.0 comes with a free 7 day trial so you can try out all its paid Basic, Pro, Elite features. After 7 days GlassWire will revert to its free version." #shamelessplug
- zercurity 7y agoWe've been using this tool to strip out unwanted Microsoft 'features' such as Cortana. Its a powershell script you simply give it your Windows ISO and it lets you remove applications and services you don't wanted installed. It creates a really awesome Windows OS. I highly recommend it. https://github.com/DrEmpiricism/Optimize-Offline https://github.com/DrEmpiricism/Optimize-Offline
- apk-d 7y agoAwesome! Any idea how well it deals with system updates? Last time I used a script to remove some of the crapware (OneDrive, games, office installers, etc) it all came back after a larger feature update.
- ksangeelee 7y agoWhile I'm glad these efforts exist, it's wrong to have to fight my operating system in this way. In my experience, it's a losing battle. Microsoft seem intent on having full control of your system, and they are in a position to take that control as and when they like. The occasional nods towards the technical crowd, for example WSL & VSCode are distracting us from the very large elephant in the room.
- glogla 7y agoVSCode is a pure marketing effort, trying to convince people that Microsoft isn't all that evil. WSL is more sinister - it's a counter to "I want to run Linux on my desktop / laptop". It is a carrot to the stick of Secure Boot that's trying to make anything else than Windows impossible on PC.
- chris_wot 7y agoSo this is why I love Gnome, it doesn’t do this sort of shit.
- zerop 7y agoI have been seeing this MS vs other debates since decades. Why Linux has not been able to come up with a consumer OS. Why Windows or MAC only rule in consumer OS space?
- sgt101 7y agoBecause the PC is an open platform and there is an ocean of devices to support. Manufactures are incentivized to produce drivers for the three platforms for their devices, but because of desktop dominance only MS can spend the dollars for competent cross device integration.
- Nextgrid 7y agoLinux user experience is awful and there’s no pressure to improve it; unlike in a for-profit company there’s no common objective & leadership that unite all the people building the Linux desktop. Doesn’t help that there are dozens of competing desktop environments so a lot of effort is duplicated and wasted.
- navigatr 7y agoGnome 3 is pretty great and so is Ubuntu 19.10. I have my parents on both and they seem to like it just fine.
- z3t4 7y agoUbuntu is very user friendly. Competition is good for the consumer and result in better products.
- Nextgrid 7y agoTell that to my friend with whom I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why Netflix wasn’t working on a brand new Ubuntu install. Had to enable a repo and install an extra package through the terminal. I can do it but there’s no way a normal user would figure that out on their own.
- 7y ago
- kmlx 7y ago"Advertisement needs to end." "Privacy is the biggest, one of the most important challenges in technology today. Democracy depends on it." in my opinion this article is a rant.
- WalterBright 7y ago> at least have the mic on for Cortana to listen and collect data. My computer doesn't have a mike. Or a camera. Or speakers.
- JBiserkov 7y agoLucky you.
- WalterBright 7y agoHow is that lucky?
- JBiserkov 7y agoCan't be spied upon?
- pojntfx 7y agoJust use Linux. It's really that simple.
- jeena 7y agoI kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.
- arminiusreturns 7y agoUbuntu isn't the only user friendly distro either. It depends on what the user wants to do. For example Manjaro, while not perfect, has an excellent hardware detector, and I sometimes recommend it for people who want to game. I have many times wanted to really dig into the "windows skins" for a few different DE's and experiment on users to see if they even noticed the difference. I suspect done correctly you could have a windows lookalike with linux underneath that many of the browser only users wouldn't be able to tell apart. I also suspect that Microsoft knows they have hurt themselves with 8/10 and their recent pushes into Linux Foundation are hedging their bets, trying to find ways to keep people on doze who might otherwise leave the ecosystem. I do get frustrated at how many people at HN ignore MS's history of anti-foss and now deride anyone who brings up EEE, but I disgress. I went gnu/linux only years ago seeing this coming after years of sysadmin'ing Win/OSX/Linux, and haven't regretted it at all. Beyond that, I remind people that they had to learn how to use windows, and even it keeps changing things (umm where did local account creation go at install, oh wait, I have to unplug ethernet to get that option? thats bullshit), so why not learn to use something like linux? It's really not that hard, especially with all the gtk frontends for cli stuff.
- sz4kerto 7y agoWe still don't have fully hardware accelerated video playback in browsers under Linux. To check this, watch a 4K video in the browser and look at the CPU usage. Edit: I can block ads in various ways (pi.hole, etc.) but I can't fix laggy UI. I'm always using Linux on one of my PCs so that I can follow how it's progressing, but Win10+WSL2+VcXsrv gives me the best of all worlds.
- 7y ago
- sbr464 7y agoI find that any major service pack install inadvertently resets preferences around defender/other settings. I’m not a daily windows user currently, but i definetly don’t appreciate opening a laptop after a month in 2019 and it being unusable for an hour while it auto updates.
- frou_dh 7y agoWhen a clean install of Windows 10 ""Professional"" had prominent ads for Candy Crush in the Start Menu, is when I realized MS had lost their dignity.
- apk-d 7y agoTo solve this, they have an upgrade you can get called "Windows 10 Pro for Workstations". Costs a little over $300. Quoting the blog post on windows.com: "You will see for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations productivity and enterprise focused applications in place of consumer applications and games. This was one of the top feedback shared with us by our partners and users and we're delivering this in our next update" Last time I tried it, it still tried to install candy crush and such, but somehow failed, resulting in a glitchy start menu. That was a while ago, though.
- panpanna 7y agoI wonder what engineers working on vscode and wsl feel when they run into people working on OS monetization in the company restaurant... What do you need to say in your interview to be assigned to the latter team?
- martius 7y agoWhat do they feel? What about being thankful for being a revenue stream, it allows us to work on more free (as in beer) and open source developer tools
- pcr910303 7y agoA little bit irrelevant to the article: Unpopular opinion but, is opt-outtable telemetry that bad? Of course using tracked behaviors for add targeting is bad (which is why my opinion is irrelevant to the article) but using telemetry to do AB-tests, UX-tests, finding bugs, etc... what’s really bad about it? Every comment about telemetry in HN reads something like ‘Telemetry with opt-out is bad, so GitLab is bad, VSCode is bad, brew is bad, etc...’ but personally I really can’t see the problem. For people who can’t believe the company enough for processing one’s data can turn off telemetry right? The fact that one is using the application from one company (for example, VSCode) implies that they trust the company (in this case, MS). If one doesn’t, one can manually turn it off.
- arendtio 7y agoI would argue that opt-in telemetry is the worst you should think about. To improve your software, there are other means than mass surveillance of your users (e.g. lab-tests). And if you really need a lot of data, ask who wants to participate and also offer a solution that lets them participate for a limited amount of time. In my experience, you can find a lot of problems with lab tests and when your team disagrees about some findings, quantitative tests can help you find the correct answer. But tracking all your users constantly isn't necessary to reach a good user experience.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoAbsolutely. I don’t see any problem with me peeking into your house either. You can opt out by closing the curtains.
- PeterStuer 7y agoYes, it is that bad. Dark pattern opt-in tomfoolery is bad enough. The current 'good luck finding your way out of this maze of never ending twists and turns' opt-out horror scenarios is 100x worse, and that is after you found out about all the tracking and reporting shenanigans and the existence of the opt-out in the first place.
- Nextgrid 7y agoYes it is bad. Most of it relies on tools provided by advertising & stalking companies like Google Analytics, so they have an incentive to also use the data for themselves, and correlate it with other data they collect about you when you use their services directly. This also means these companies (even if not involved in advertising directly) have an insane potential in tracking users across all apps that happen to use their services, making them a very juicy target, including for state actors. > AB-tests, UX-tests I don't want to be a lab rat. If you are testing things then please make it clear and let me see both options and I will happily give feedback. > finding bugs What if the software crashes while processing confidential data and part of that data is contained in the core dump that you just sent off because you don't respect your users enough to ask them?
- ekianjo 7y ago> And, Apple has lit this torch. Too bad this ends on this line. So you recommend trusting another corporation over Microsoft to be virtuous over the long term? The only OS you can truly control is well known, and it's Linux.
- netsharc 7y agoApple, trust us, but we'll pull that app if your tyrannical government says they don't like it (referring to the Hong Kong protest map app). We'll put our data center in China since that's what the Chinese government ordered! Emojis of 2 men (or women) holding hands? Can't see them in Indonesia.
- Nextgrid 7y agoI’d rather take an usable thing that I control 50% than an unusable thing I control 100%. I don’t think anyone said anything about the long-term; at the moment Apple is what I swear by for general-purpose computing; it’s the least terrible option. That of course can change depending on their actions and then I’ll re-evaluate my decision.
- neilpanchal 7y ago“Apple has lit the torch”, I mean that Apple is leading the way forward for privacy centric products and services. Whether one chooses to trust Apple and buy their products, that’s debatable. But, it is evident, and clear that Apple’s press, their marketing, keynotes, technology and their products in last 3 years have a central theme - Privacy.
- bsaul 7y agoI completely agree. The best reason i think to trust apple is because of their revenue model which almost entirely come from selling hardware. Now with their recent increase in revenue from services, i’m a bit worried that it could change in the future.
- Gabrielfair 7y agoGreat article! I'm curious if you have anything to add about Window's "Your Phone" app. Which gives Microsoft full access to your android phone and your behavior and data on your mobile device. Unlike apple which provides this feature with end to end encryption. I feel like this is a next level of evil.
- yread 7y ago> what does that even mean to me it reads like a description of "marketing accessibility" in more words. So, making your ads work well with screen readers. Truly a devilish conspiracy by M$ /s
- cryptozeus 7y agoWe have win machine at the office with latest OS. I don’t see these ads at all. Clearly there is a way to prevent this otherwise companies would not go for it.
- cpach 7y agoThat’ not really the point of the article though.
- ohthehugemanate 7y agoWhat a load of shit. I love the guy trying to infer Microsoft's ad profit centers by trying to read between the lines of marketing copy. Entertaining stuff. But let's not confuse this for grown up analysis. Microsoft releases their financials, like every publicly traded corporation. Bing search ads are a small part of revenu, about 5% of what Azure earns, and stable. Desktop ads are a vanishingly small line item. Microsoft's strategy is based on platform sales — you know, the part of their business whose revenue is doubling every quarter. Google's strategy is based on "collect it all" data hoarding and ad sales. But the punchline is really the best part. "Apple has lit the torch." Siri and Cortana are analogous products, and they are the motivation for both their companies' data collection. Actually a voice assistant gives a company a ton of power, but it can be used for different purposes. Alexa doesn't exist for ad revenue, it exists to push more sales through Amazon. Cortana exists to push Azure platform integrated features in Windows, effectively doubling down the value of the platform investment. Siri exists to push Apple integrated features and to guard the gates of their walled garden. The only valid part if the article is that it's hard to believe that anyone really wants a voice assistant.
- neilpanchal 7y agoYou’re right that I’ve not backed some of the claims with objective financial analysis. I searched for annual reports, then went off to finishing the post, in the interest of time. I thought that it would take a long time to read the reports to find out the revenue broken down into various business segments instead of “Microsoft Search Network” bucket. Furthermore, whether ad business is a 1/20th of Microsoft’s revenue, is by itself not an indicator. It’s still a 7 billion dollar business. That’s larger than a lot of successful companies. Apple’s services business has grown rapidly from 0% to the second largest source of revenue. Microsoft, Adobe, etc are all aggressively trying to penetrate the ad market. Microsoft has failed to capitalize on IE/Edge or Bing, as much as it tried. Now, they’re hostile to privacy and have permeated their ad strategy to operating system level. I don’t agree with you about Siri and Cortana. I was trying to say that Apple is leading the path, “lit the torch”, to become a privacy centric business. And they’re openly advertising their products with Privacy motifs. That’s what I see. It wasn’t about Cortana or Siri. I’m glad I was able to entertain! Edit: If you’d like a thorough analysis, I strongly suggest subscribing to Stratechery blog.
- vezycash 7y ago>There is no Windows equivalent of Little Snitch BW Meter is closer to Little Snitch than Glasswire. And it's very light on resources.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dareobasanjo 7y agoMicrosoft isn't selling your PC usage data to advertisers. If you doubt me, go ahead and show me how you can buy this data. I'll gladly give you my next month's salary if you can.
- antpls 7y agoThis question : "how can I buy data from X" should be asked more often on HN, for factual purposes. I would like the same question asked about Google.
- pixl97 7y agoOr should this question be asked as "what type of warrant needs served for law enforcement to get this data from Microsoft about you"
- devicetray0 7y agoThese kinds of deals are enterprise-level, in meeting rooms, with sales people. They don't happen on the public web. So your challenge isn't plausible and you take no risk here
- whamlastxmas 7y agoMicrosoft comes with third party games installed by default. I am certain that those are paid for, I am certain if you open that software it phones home to let them know you did, and I'm certain that information gets sent to the game developer. I'll take PayPal
- greggman2 7y agoit does not matter if they sell it or not I don't want it collected. It could later be subpoenaed or stolen. They should just not collect it in the first place
- nashashmi 7y ago> isn't selling your PC usage data Correct. It is selling use of PC usage data. In other words the stuff is compiled together and offered to specific businesses with specific needs, if and when they come up with it. It won't be publicly available at first. I will be customized to each industry. Once they figure out how to scale it, everyone will have access to streamlined telemetry.
- DavideNL 7y agoI recently had to install Windows 10 and ended up installing "Windows 10 LTSC". Right after install i used "O&O shutup" and "Win10-Initial-Setup-Script" to get some sane defaults/strip all the crap. It's sad that Windows itself has become bloatware... https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script
- fortran77 7y agoMy business partner's kid runs a cracked Windows 10 LTSC when he plays games because "he doesn't like Microsoft spying on him" as if he's some valuable target. Because it's hacked, it's crashy (and also his "rig" is overclocked and badly integrated.) And of course, he blames "Windows" for being so crashy.
- saagarjha 7y ago> "he doesn't like Microsoft spying on him" as if he's some valuable target Everyone has a right to privacy, not just the people you think are being watched.
- fortran77 7y agoBut he doesn't have a right to steal from Microsoft and then criticize the product for being "crashy" (as many people here who "run Windows for gaming" are doing).
- Gabrielfair 7y agoThe author did not even mention how Windows 10 pushes the "Your Phone" app. Which gives Microsoft full access to your android phone and your behavior and data on your mobile device. Unlike apple which provides this feature with end to end encryption.
- sizzle 7y agoIt's a nuclear arms race for capturing and monetizing user behavior and attention across all tech giants. I'm generally against pervasive government regulation and oversight as a fellow tech enthusiast, but I fear where humanity is headed if these companies are left unchecked to their own devices, in an era where echo-chamber outrage amplifying newsfeed algorithms are subverting democracy as we know it.
- anonguid18249 7y agohmm... why is this linking to a 404 now? Did this get taken down or intimidated out somehow?
- asdasdasdasdwd 7y agoHere's google's cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fneil.computer%2Fnotes%2Fmicrosoft%2Dadvertisement%2F https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%...