5 ms·

I don't know, but Microsoft made a big deal out of saying they were better than Google with their "Scroogled" campaign.

by Drakim 13y ago

kevingadd 13y ago
What Microsoft did here is different from the Google behavior they criticize in multiple ways: Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). This means that to a degree, the privacy and security of all your emails is compromised - though we would all hope that Google firewalls that stuff off carefully and ensures that no traces of the mails remain after they're scanned for ad keywords. To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. Both behaviors may be undesirable, but they are very, very different.
- Drakim 13y ago
  Neither Google nor Microsoft has outright hurt me with their privacy policies in any way I can personally detect. When it comes to this discussion, for me it's a matter of principles. The principles are being equally violated here, it doesn't matter if one does it more frequently than the other.
  - JTenerife 13y ago
    So, you agree to what kevingadd wrote.
- msabalau 13y ago
  Of course the emotional appeal that Microsoft was making was that a personified "Google" was poking through your e-mail. It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. In this particular case human beings at Microsoft actually did paw through this individual's e-mail, to his detriment, as was their intent. At the same time, it seems unlikely that anyone believes that Microsoft was actually advancing a principled criticism in an ad campaign as opposed to merely saying an expedient thing. I doubt that accusations of "hypocrisy" will hurt them, other than making coverage of "scroogled" in the press marginally more disdainful.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. There is a fundamental difference. If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. If you do content-based advertising, it's in your interest to collect data from as many sources as possible (from e-mails, to locations, to search queries) and combine them. The latter may not be acceptable to some people.
    - msabalau 13y ago
      It is clear (from reading HN) that some people exist who do not find this acceptable. At the same time, the adoption rates for, say, Facebook show that "nearly everyone" are not actually concerned about such things in practice. There are those who might argue that people should be more concerned. I believe you may find that such conversations have occurred. Regardless, it seems silly to pretend that Microsoft is making a principled claim, as opposed to mouthing what they hope are scary words. Similarly, Microsoft isn't actually worried about the plight of young women who may be under the impression that they can pawn their chromebooks to fund a trip to LA.
    - Oletros 13y ago
      One thing is collect data, another is scanning all the emails and both of them do that
    - kllrnohj 13y ago
      > If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. False. Microsoft is still hoovering up every scrap of data they can get. They'd be stupid not to, as data is insanely powerful. You don't need much data at all to do targetted advertising, by the way. Seriously, Google uses at most 1% of the data it gets from you for ad-related reasons, if that. No, Google's obsession with data is because data is tremendously powerful at building better products. Microsoft is just shooting themselves in the foot if they aren't doing the exact same thing. Besides, if you don't want targetted advertising just go turn it off: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/ https://www.google.com/settings/ads/
- danieldk 13y ago
  Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). Even when the administrator has switched off ads, e-mails are still mined to show ads in Google services that are not covered under Google Apps: http://safegov.org/2014/1/31/google-admits-data-mining-student-emails-in-its-free-education-apps http://safegov.org/2014/1/31/google-admits-data-mining-stude... Since Google Apps for Business uses the same privacy policy, there is little reason to believe that anything is different when you are paying $5 per user per month. The privacy policy clearly states that Google can mine your data for ads. Ads can just be turned off for the services covered by Google Apps (but not Google+, Google Maps, Youtube, Google Search, etc.).
  - danieldk 13y ago
    I have to add that it's not my intention to bash Google. I actually think their privacy policy is actually readable in comparison to many other services. Also, most other large services don't provide something akin to Google Dashboard.
  - magicalist 13y ago
    Just so you're aware, safegov appears to be a Microsoft astrotufing site: http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an-epic-fail-for-microsoft http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an... though you can pretty much tell if you just look at their list of articles. In any case, the article is wrong, on a number of fronts, actually. e.g. the DoubleClick and Google account cookies are never mixed (Google agreed to this in the wake of concerns over the merger, and it's called out explicitly in the Google privacy policy), the statement on Enterprise privacy policies and that testimony about the University of Hawaii don't contradict each other at all, and it's ridiculous to base a whole article on an entry on the University of Alaska's email FAQ. The entry is wrong anyway. Check out the "Data Processing Amendment"[1] that comes with Enterprise/Education accounts, which prohibits processing data in ways that aren't explicitly enumerated in that document. Advertising profiling is not included. [1] https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/terms/dpa_terms.html https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/terms/dpa_ter...
- Oletros 13y ago
  > Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, Exactly like Microsoft, Apple or Yahoo! does. I don't know where has started that urban legend that only Google scan the emails, every email provider that does anti spam, auto categorizes or does full text search read all the emails.
- kllrnohj 13y ago
  > To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. You are correct that the comparison is blatantly wrong. What Microsoft did is evil and a massive, massive violation of privacy and trust. What Google does can't even be classified as evil. Arguably it's creepy, but that's about the extent of it, and they have been clear about it from the start. And bullshit on the "explicit permission" part. No where did anybody get a clear "you grant Microsoft the right to read your email whenever they bloody well want to if it suits an internal investigation with zero oversight" checkbox. > Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users This is incorrect, as the word "read" requires some amount of comprehension. The automatic indexing algorithm has no comprehension of what it is scanning, ergo there is no "reading" going on.
  - basch 13y ago
    Evil? Creepy? One of their employees was using hotmail to leak trade secrets. One of their own employees.
mikelat 13y ago
That's the reason anybody remotely cares about this. Given that you aren't hosting your own email servers it's a likely possibility that your privacy won't be respected, however in Microsoft's case they had an entire campaign to scare people away from Google and onto their services.

I don't know, but Microsoft made a big deal out of saying they were better than Google with their "Scroogled" campaign.

by Drakim 13y ago

I don't know, but Microsoft made a big deal out of saying they were better than Google with their "Scroogled" campaign.

What Microsoft did here is different from the Google behavior they criticize in multiple ways: Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). This means that to a degree, the privacy and security of all your emails is compromised - though we would all hope that Google firewalls that stuff off carefully and ensures that no traces of the mails remain after they're scanned for ad keywords. To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. Both behaviors may be undesirable, but they are very, very different.

Drakim 13y ago
Neither Google nor Microsoft has outright hurt me with their privacy policies in any way I can personally detect. When it comes to this discussion, for me it's a matter of principles. The principles are being equally violated here, it doesn't matter if one does it more frequently than the other.
- JTenerife 13y ago
  So, you agree to what kevingadd wrote.
msabalau 13y ago
Of course the emotional appeal that Microsoft was making was that a personified "Google" was poking through your e-mail. It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. In this particular case human beings at Microsoft actually did paw through this individual's e-mail, to his detriment, as was their intent. At the same time, it seems unlikely that anyone believes that Microsoft was actually advancing a principled criticism in an ad campaign as opposed to merely saying an expedient thing. I doubt that accusations of "hypocrisy" will hurt them, other than making coverage of "scroogled" in the press marginally more disdainful.
- danieldk 13y ago
  It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. There is a fundamental difference. If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. If you do content-based advertising, it's in your interest to collect data from as many sources as possible (from e-mails, to locations, to search queries) and combine them. The latter may not be acceptable to some people.
  - msabalau 13y ago
    It is clear (from reading HN) that some people exist who do not find this acceptable. At the same time, the adoption rates for, say, Facebook show that "nearly everyone" are not actually concerned about such things in practice. There are those who might argue that people should be more concerned. I believe you may find that such conversations have occurred. Regardless, it seems silly to pretend that Microsoft is making a principled claim, as opposed to mouthing what they hope are scary words. Similarly, Microsoft isn't actually worried about the plight of young women who may be under the impression that they can pawn their chromebooks to fund a trip to LA.
  - Oletros 13y ago
    One thing is collect data, another is scanning all the emails and both of them do that
  - kllrnohj 13y ago
    > If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. False. Microsoft is still hoovering up every scrap of data they can get. They'd be stupid not to, as data is insanely powerful. You don't need much data at all to do targetted advertising, by the way. Seriously, Google uses at most 1% of the data it gets from you for ad-related reasons, if that. No, Google's obsession with data is because data is tremendously powerful at building better products. Microsoft is just shooting themselves in the foot if they aren't doing the exact same thing. Besides, if you don't want targetted advertising just go turn it off: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/ https://www.google.com/settings/ads/
danieldk 13y ago
Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). Even when the administrator has switched off ads, e-mails are still mined to show ads in Google services that are not covered under Google Apps: http://safegov.org/2014/1/31/google-admits-data-mining-student-emails-in-its-free-education-apps http://safegov.org/2014/1/31/google-admits-data-mining-stude... Since Google Apps for Business uses the same privacy policy, there is little reason to believe that anything is different when you are paying $5 per user per month. The privacy policy clearly states that Google can mine your data for ads. Ads can just be turned off for the services covered by Google Apps (but not Google+, Google Maps, Youtube, Google Search, etc.).
- danieldk 13y ago
  I have to add that it's not my intention to bash Google. I actually think their privacy policy is actually readable in comparison to many other services. Also, most other large services don't provide something akin to Google Dashboard.
- magicalist 13y ago
  Just so you're aware, safegov appears to be a Microsoft astrotufing site: http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an-epic-fail-for-microsoft http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an... though you can pretty much tell if you just look at their list of articles. In any case, the article is wrong, on a number of fronts, actually. e.g. the DoubleClick and Google account cookies are never mixed (Google agreed to this in the wake of concerns over the merger, and it's called out explicitly in the Google privacy policy), the statement on Enterprise privacy policies and that testimony about the University of Hawaii don't contradict each other at all, and it's ridiculous to base a whole article on an entry on the University of Alaska's email FAQ. The entry is wrong anyway. Check out the "Data Processing Amendment"[1] that comes with Enterprise/Education accounts, which prohibits processing data in ways that aren't explicitly enumerated in that document. Advertising profiling is not included. [1] https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/terms/dpa_terms.html https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/terms/dpa_ter...
Oletros 13y ago
> Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, Exactly like Microsoft, Apple or Yahoo! does. I don't know where has started that urban legend that only Google scan the emails, every email provider that does anti spam, auto categorizes or does full text search read all the emails.
kllrnohj 13y ago
> To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. You are correct that the comparison is blatantly wrong. What Microsoft did is evil and a massive, massive violation of privacy and trust. What Google does can't even be classified as evil. Arguably it's creepy, but that's about the extent of it, and they have been clear about it from the start. And bullshit on the "explicit permission" part. No where did anybody get a clear "you grant Microsoft the right to read your email whenever they bloody well want to if it suits an internal investigation with zero oversight" checkbox. > Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users This is incorrect, as the word "read" requires some amount of comprehension. The automatic indexing algorithm has no comprehension of what it is scanning, ergo there is no "reading" going on.
- basch 13y ago
  Evil? Creepy? One of their employees was using hotmail to leak trade secrets. One of their own employees.

mikelat 13y ago

That's the reason anybody remotely cares about this. Given that you aren't hosting your own email servers it's a likely possibility that your privacy won't be respected, however in Microsoft's case they had an entire campaign to scare people away from Google and onto their services.