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That is a help page guiding the user on how to use the feature. Of course it’s going to be “hidden” when turning on the feature is the smallest step to using it

That is a help page guiding the user on how to use the feature. Of course it’s going to be “hidden” when turning on the feature is the smallest step to using it. If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”. It isn’t hidden or buried under a dozen other settings when you install PowerPoint, it’s done at time of use. How, exactly, would you want it to be more obvious? A big red box every time the feature is mentioned in the help site? Be realistic here; in terms of user consent this is perfectly fine.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”. I disagree. > How, exactly, would you want it to be more obvious? A big red box every time the feature is mentioned in the help site? Yes, more or less. I would be perfectly happy with a single red box at the top that says this feature sends the contents of your slide to Microsoft. I am not okay with linking to a privacy policy that nobody's going to read and pretending that that's informed consent.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  > Yes, more or less. I would be perfectly happy with a single red box at the top that says this feature sends the contents of your slide to Microsoft. As a user I'd like the ability to opt-in/out of this. I much prefer a privacy policy that captures all of it for the app. Otherwise, I have red boxes showing up non-stop using most apps. Can you imagine the sheer number of red boxes you'd get for Netflix the first few times you use it!
  - JadeNB 4y ago
    > As a user I'd like the ability to opt-in/out of this. I much prefer a privacy policy that captures all of it for the app. Otherwise, I have red boxes showing up non-stop using most apps. Can you imagine the sheer number of red boxes you'd get for Netflix the first few times you use it! Of course it's impractical in today's environment, but I think we'd be in a much better place if we'd established early on the idea that a piece of software that massively violates your privacy (which is to say, all of them, nowadays) comes laden with a terrifying number of red boxes when you read its privacy policy.
pavon 4y ago
IT has disabled the feature for us, and quick googling didn't turn up any screen shots, so I can't see the prompt myself, but given how it is described it doesn't seem adequate to me. When software asks permission it needs to say what it is asking permission for. Something like: "This feature will send your slide contents to Microsoft's cloud servers to search for relevant design ideas. See our Privacy Policy for more information on how we protect your data". It doesn't need red flashing lights, but the user shouldn't have to dig around to determine what/why the program is asking confirmation.
- pavon 4y ago
  Okay, I found a screenshot of the request[1], and I don't think it is clearly communicating to the user what they are agreeing to. On the good side, they do clearly describe which information is involved (search terms and document content), but on the bad side it isn't clear about what is being done with that information. In particular, for over 20 years Microsoft had used "Office" to mean a piece of software running on your own computer, so saying that "Office" needs to "collect" information doesn't clearly convey the idea that your documents being sent over the internet. [1] https://slidehunter.com/how-to-automatically-design-slides-with-powerpoint-designer/ https://slidehunter.com/how-to-automatically-design-slides-w...

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

> If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”. I disagree. > How, exactly, would you want it to be more obvious? A big red box every time the feature is mentioned in the help site? Yes, more or less. I would be perfectly happy with a single red box at the top that says this feature sends the contents of your slide to Microsoft. I am not okay with linking to a privacy policy that nobody's going to read and pretending that that's informed consent.

kenjackson 4y ago
> Yes, more or less. I would be perfectly happy with a single red box at the top that says this feature sends the contents of your slide to Microsoft. As a user I'd like the ability to opt-in/out of this. I much prefer a privacy policy that captures all of it for the app. Otherwise, I have red boxes showing up non-stop using most apps. Can you imagine the sheer number of red boxes you'd get for Netflix the first few times you use it!
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > As a user I'd like the ability to opt-in/out of this. I much prefer a privacy policy that captures all of it for the app. Otherwise, I have red boxes showing up non-stop using most apps. Can you imagine the sheer number of red boxes you'd get for Netflix the first few times you use it! Of course it's impractical in today's environment, but I think we'd be in a much better place if we'd established early on the idea that a piece of software that massively violates your privacy (which is to say, all of them, nowadays) comes laden with a terrifying number of red boxes when you read its privacy policy.

pavon 4y ago

IT has disabled the feature for us, and quick googling didn't turn up any screen shots, so I can't see the prompt myself, but given how it is described it doesn't seem adequate to me. When software asks permission it needs to say what it is asking permission for. Something like: "This feature will send your slide contents to Microsoft's cloud servers to search for relevant design ideas. See our Privacy Policy for more information on how we protect your data". It doesn't need red flashing lights, but the user shouldn't have to dig around to determine what/why the program is asking confirmation.

pavon 4y ago
Okay, I found a screenshot of the request[1], and I don't think it is clearly communicating to the user what they are agreeing to. On the good side, they do clearly describe which information is involved (search terms and document content), but on the bad side it isn't clear about what is being done with that information. In particular, for over 20 years Microsoft had used "Office" to mean a piece of software running on your own computer, so saying that "Office" needs to "collect" information doesn't clearly convey the idea that your documents being sent over the internet. [1] https://slidehunter.com/how-to-automatically-design-slides-with-powerpoint-designer/ https://slidehunter.com/how-to-automatically-design-slides-w...