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Is it not totally normal and OK (and not a violation of any kind) for Microsoft to share user data with Microsoft? Fighting for user privacy is a laudable goal

by bgun 3y ago

Is it not totally normal and OK (and not a violation of any kind) for Microsoft to share user data with Microsoft? Fighting for user privacy is a laudable goal but in this particular case what, if any, ethical breach has occurred? As others have commented, it's like being upset that Google Search is aware of websites you visited in Chrome. Is it unethical for that to be the case?

garbagecoder 3y ago
Knee-jerk Internet commentators think any packet going anywhere is a breach of their privacy which is funny because that's sort of the point of a network. For me, this particular issue isn't about privacy, it's that these companies get to make their products better using my data and I get nothing out of it. Sort of how they train their AIs. Privacy has been popularly re-defined to be "any data." Remember when people's name, address, and phone number was published in a big yellow and white book and delivered to everyone's driveway? What we should want is compensation for the use of our non-PII data and a restriction on information about us that can be used to harm us, financial, medical, etc. to be restricted. Chrome not telling Google I went to Amazon.com would be great, but Amazon knows I went there and if I use 8.8.8.8 so does Google anyway.
akira2501 3y ago
One is a product I pay for. The other is a loss leading product given away by a monopoly to support their ad business. In both cases, because of these factors, yes.. I consider it to be unethical.
feoren 3y ago
> it's like being upset that Google Search is aware of websites you visited in Chrome. Is it unethical for that to be the case? Yes. It's unethical in both cases.
Jon_Lowtek 3y ago
Of course it is unethical. The fundamental right to data privacy means that corporations are not allowed to track and profile their users activities without consent and contract. And such consent is purpose-bound, consenting to an autocompletion feature does not imply being ok with that data being used for whatever. Imagine you buy some shoes and learn that they share location information with their manufacturer. Now you think "well they do have this feature warning me if you walk in a dangerous area, so i kind of knew they do", but then your health insurance changes your policy because "you haven't been walking enough". Does it become more ethical when the shoe producer and the insurance company happen to belong to the some corporate group, because they are not sharing with a third party? The primary ethical problem is about using the data for purposes the users did not know about and did not agree to. People use Edge to browse the web. Microsoft adds a new feature called "Follow Creator" and enables it by default, without asking for consent, and then fails to disclose why exactly that feature needs to collect all urls their users browse to and what that data is used for. These are highly unethical business practices.

by bgun 3y ago

garbagecoder 3y ago

Knee-jerk Internet commentators think any packet going anywhere is a breach of their privacy which is funny because that's sort of the point of a network. For me, this particular issue isn't about privacy, it's that these companies get to make their products better using my data and I get nothing out of it. Sort of how they train their AIs. Privacy has been popularly re-defined to be "any data." Remember when people's name, address, and phone number was published in a big yellow and white book and delivered to everyone's driveway? What we should want is compensation for the use of our non-PII data and a restriction on information about us that can be used to harm us, financial, medical, etc. to be restricted. Chrome not telling Google I went to Amazon.com would be great, but Amazon knows I went there and if I use 8.8.8.8 so does Google anyway.

akira2501 3y ago

One is a product I pay for. The other is a loss leading product given away by a monopoly to support their ad business. In both cases, because of these factors, yes.. I consider it to be unethical.

feoren 3y ago

> it's like being upset that Google Search is aware of websites you visited in Chrome. Is it unethical for that to be the case? Yes. It's unethical in both cases.

Jon_Lowtek 3y ago

Of course it is unethical. The fundamental right to data privacy means that corporations are not allowed to track and profile their users activities without consent and contract. And such consent is purpose-bound, consenting to an autocompletion feature does not imply being ok with that data being used for whatever. Imagine you buy some shoes and learn that they share location information with their manufacturer. Now you think "well they do have this feature warning me if you walk in a dangerous area, so i kind of knew they do", but then your health insurance changes your policy because "you haven't been walking enough". Does it become more ethical when the shoe producer and the insurance company happen to belong to the some corporate group, because they are not sharing with a third party? The primary ethical problem is about using the data for purposes the users did not know about and did not agree to. People use Edge to browse the web. Microsoft adds a new feature called "Follow Creator" and enables it by default, without asking for consent, and then fails to disclose why exactly that feature needs to collect all urls their users browse to and what that data is used for. These are highly unethical business practices.