Microsoft slams Google's privacy policy in newspaper ad

Neither do I. I cannot see why people, presumably without any direct benefit, will espouse purchasing software when a community of open and free (in the $ sense) software exists. In one case, the recent so-called co-operation in complying with net standards may just be a ruse to lock people into other peoducts such as office programs and operating systems. The good thing is that BYOD to work has clearly exposed what type of software and OS and hardware people would like to use.

 

People know this but they can only indulge in propaganda for whatever reason (which would be better if they made clear). I prefer direct advertising rather than the indirect advertising that seems to happen ever so often.

Google is reading my mail. Google is reading my mail. Ad nauseam. Of course, that isn't seen as a diatribe.

It's amusing, sometimes, to see the targetted ad served up on GMail: I remember getting something about the metal Chromium, rather than stuff related to the browser.

 

dude, Linux doesn't fulfill my needs. Period. As I told you in other occasions, I'm a gamer first, before being a geek. I purchase PC games and so I need a 100% compatible platform, that also unlocks all the potential of my games and hardware. Windows does that. No other OS does that.

EDIT: but I see your point. Whenever possible, I use open source software and/or freeware. But this isn't an option for me on the OS' sphere.

 

Let's not forget the TPL episode where a prominent company released a tracking list that had a huge amount of allows? Why? AltriusmAltruism?

 

What happened exactly? Any links?

 

*popcorn*

 

I'm all for using what is useful - whether free or paid, whether open or closed source.

To me, I got no use for Linux, etc. I don't know what future will bring to me, but for the time being no need.

And, many times there's a problem that some seem to neglect with open source and free software. And, that problem is either lacking localization or a very poor one and many times half-cooked ones, and simply because these software developers need people to donate their time and translate them. These people also need to have a good understanding of both languages (native and the software's).

There's no point in using a free or open source application, if the user won't understand the software's "native" language.

-edit-

There probably are some paid-for apps (smaller software developers) who also need others to translate their apps, by donating translations. And these will also suffer from the same. But, generally speaking, paid for software is properly translated, and translations done by professionals.

 

I feel like we've been here before m00n. haha

 

Google is making that abuse right now. Google isn't offering what is normally expected regarding privacy controls. And their privacy policy changed mainly to benefit the Google Plus social network, that's very obvious.

Google's execs know the money Facebook is making and that people are becoming more and more involved on Facebook's ecosystem. People waste their time there more than on Google services. So Google needs to play all their cards to improve Google Plus and make it attractive. Even if that costs some legitimate attacks, like this one from Microsoft. They can defend against those attacks with a mix of good PR and FUD (which sometimes costs them money) together with the guaranteed help from fanboys (which will jump on their defense for free).

 

I suppose I wasn't here... paying much attention. Sorry folks.

 

How?

Their policy has as much to do with + as with any other product. The only thing that changed in the policy is that it's now the same policy for each product and instead of data being collected (as per usual) and staying within a service it's now correlated with all services.

I think you're confusing the policy with them linking the google+ accounts with gmail etc as they did with youtube and all other services long ago. This is something they've always done.

I don't see the abuse. Could you point it out? If data collection is an abuse they've been abusing (and so has MS) for a long time.

EDIT:

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/02/busting-myths-about-our-approach-to.html

 

And that's the main reason. More data to improve Google Plus. Don't you agree that Google Plus is Google's main area of investment right now?

The abuse is the lack of proper privacy controls right now. Just compare Google services' privacy controls with Microsoft's ones. You simply doesn't have as many choices with Google. Like Microsoft said, Google broke the balance.

 

See my edit. EDIT (sorry lol) can you view your search data and selectively remove it with MS? I can with Google. I can do that for every google service with Dashboard.

Does MS have anything comparable to this?
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/

Google+ is only one of the services that will be improved by the data. It will be across the board and this would have happened with or without +.

 

Go and compare what you can do with one and with the other:

http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.mspx

http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/fullnotice.mspx

 

Looks very similar (though a bit less UI friendly) and just as functional though that's just on the surface, I don't have an account I can look at. So where's the problem with Google again? It seems to have everything MS has...

 

Lol and I just found Live dashboard: https://choice.live.com/Data/Dashboard

And it's definitely much much more powerful than Google's one. For example, I can't stop personalized ads with Google but I can with Live dashboard (even on Bing!).

I'm comparing them right now on 2 accounts (a Gmail and a Live). Make a Live account and compare them too

 

http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/

There's basically nothing different about the way MS and Google handle these things. MS is full of it and they're just desperate for some of that search market pie.

EDIT: If you're going to call Google evil you should probably call MS evil - the difference I see is that MS has a solid history of it. I personally don't think companies can be "good" or "evil" and I don't care much about either anyways.

 

Rofl.

To opt-out of Google Analytics I have to install a browser add-on.

http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

 

It's just a cookie. The add-on only ensures that it stays persistent and doesn't get cleared. I think you can actually install only the cookie but it won't include the other cookies for other ad-agencies.

 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/privacy-protection-and-ie9-who-can-you-trust/3014 "It doesn’t help that one of the five lists that Microsoft highlights for IE9 RC users just happens to give a handful of Microsoft-owned domains a free pass on privacy."

And with the thread topic in mind: http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16233-Microsofts-Addiction-to-Collecting-Tracking-Data.html

 

Oh the TRUSTe one. Microsoft online services are allowed there because of this: http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/fullnotice.mspx#E5CAC

And so I would be more willing to question why Google doesn't have the TRUSTe's Privacy Seal.

 

Is this just a pissing match between who's "most private" now?


EDIT: BTW, Facebook is TRUSTe certified. Nuff said?

EDIT: No, not enough said actually!

http://www.truste.com/privacy-program-requirements/program-requirements

 

Since the start. For all I've seem (which isn't much because neither Google nor Microsoft have any data on my accounts - or at least that's what they are saying), Microsoft offers more options (or at least more comprehensible ways to deal with them and know what exactly is being collected).

Facebook's privacy controls are very powerful.

Wow, so wasn't Google complying with its own privacy statements? Well, it doesn't matter anymore, because now they have a new one which gives them way more power. Lol.

 

See my second edit, it's a fun one.

Like what?

They both offer a full "suite" of options... they're completely comparable.

The difference is that MS is calling Google out for being evil when they treat privacy almost identically.

 

I do suppose it really is just a pissing match. It's just one that MS started and ironically since the only thing I've seen proven so far is how similar their policies are.