4 ms·

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 s

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

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/