Apple, Microsoft Tout Their Privacy Policies To Get Positive PR 103
jfruh writes: Apple hasn't changed its privacy policy in more than a year — but that didn't stop the company from putting up a glossy website explaining it in layman's terms. Microsoft too has been touting its respect for its users's privacy. This doesn't represent any high-minded altruism on those companies' parts, of course; it's part of their battle against Google, their archrival that offers almost all of its services for free and makes its money mining user data.
Google is mining my user data? (Score:2)
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No, they aren't doing it for you. If anything, they would be using your CPU cycles to mine BC for them.
Because you run an adblocker, you scum!
Error in title (Score:3)
Re:Google is mining my user data? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know your post is funny, but let's not overlook the opportunity to critique what is possibly the worst Slashdot article ever.
Apple, Microsoft Tout Their Privacy Policies To Get Positive PR
As opposed to all those times when companies tout thing to get negative PR?
Apple hasn't changed its privacy policy in more than a year
Okay, looking for the news here.
but that didn't stop the company from putting up a glossy website explaining it in layman's terms
Well, this is bad because... you know, because, something?
Microsoft too has been touting its respect for its users's privacy.
Link? Article? Something?
This doesn't represent any high-minded altruism on those companies' parts, of course
Of course. Because, you know, [CITATION NEEDED]
it's part of their battle against Google, their archrival that offers almost all of its services for free and makes its money mining user data.
Dear Slashdot/Dice/whoever is actually running the show, can someone actually articulate where there is actually anything to talk about here? Maybe other than stoking a clickbait + flame bait war over who loves TEH GOOOGLES vs. the homosexuals who likes TEH APPLES and the obvious shills who are the only ones who claim to like TEH MICROSOFTS omg zerg rush?
Seriously, Slashdot, WTF? What. The. Fuck? An article about how one company hasn't changed its privacy policy, and how another has... not done anything? What The. Fuck?
Look, I haven't left this site yet because I haven't found a better alternative. But you're making it harder and harder every day to justify staying here with shit like this.
Re:Google is mining my user data? (Score:5, Funny)
I know your post is funny, but let's not overlook the opportunity to critique what is possibly the worst Slashdot article ever.
They forgot to give us Bennet Haselton's thoughts on the subject. That would have been the finishing touch that made it the worst article ever.
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Look, I haven't left this site yet because I haven't found a better alternative.
The big tech news are usually found one day earlier at Hacker News, which also gets a threaded comment system.
Political commentary and trolling are not allowed there, and downvotes actually hurt, so usually there are much less comments; but sometimes that's an advantage.
The only reason why I still lurk around here is because open source software and "your rights online" news are typically analyzed more in depth here - there's st
Speaking of MS and "privacy" (Score:5, Insightful)
When are they rolling out the update(s) for Win 7 that makes it spy on you (like Win 10 does) and what updates should we uninstall to prevent this?
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I'm pretty sure they already did. Try this. [windowsitpro.com]
Speaking of, I don't think is Microsoft attacking Google per se, more damage control for the Windows spying fiasco.
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Even if we assume this is accurate and this "telemetry" data is the only spying they are doing (a patently incorrect assumption), this is still an incredible amount of metadata being collected.
A lot of people - even some that should know better - have bought the propaganda that spying on "metadata" doesn't matter. In reality, metadata (or "anonymous" usage statistics) is the most valuable data that can be collected in bulk. As former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said, "We kill people based on metad [youtube.com]
Re:Speaking of MS and "privacy"??? (Score:1)
They must be fucking kidding
with all the intrusive telemetry of Win 10, being pushed into 7 and 8!
They want to become like google, making big money off of advertising or data mining.
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And yet, you all bend over for Google...
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Actually, we all know Microsoft is evil :D
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So because someone hates Microsoft, they must love Google? What kind of idiotic logic is that?
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It's a bit like being an atheist who keeps getting asked whether he worships God or Satan, yes.
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So the shills have been copying Scientology's "what are your crimes" deflection tactic for a while now. I wonder who approved that plan, as it didn't work for CoS either.
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I saved a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmas... [reddit.com]
"Privacy Policy" (Score:1)
Listed under Popular Fiction. Eh, whatever closes the deal...
Scroogled! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Scroogled! (Score:1)
Why not both (Score:1)
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Because you're on slashdot and therefore you must hate Apple.
And anyone who uses pro Apple facts is just a fanboy.
Come on, how hard are these rules ?
Re:Why not both (Score:4, Insightful)
I have two thoughts on this. First, Apple's business model is fundamentally different from google's, and it makes sense for apple to point out the benefits of their business model at every opportunity. Second, I suspect that Tim Cook is extraordinarily sensitive to privacy issues, and one could hypothesize that it may have to do with growing up gay in Alabama in the 60s.
Re:Why not both (Score:4, Interesting)
I have two thoughts on this. First, Apple's business model is fundamentally different from google's, and it makes sense for apple to point out the benefits of their business model at every opportunity. Second, I suspect that Tim Cook is extraordinarily sensitive to privacy issues, and one could hypothesize that it may have to do with growing up gay in Alabama in the 60s.
I recently caved in and bought my wife a Macbook Pro.
I've been wanting for years to get her off Windows, and my chances of ever getting her on Linux are slim to none. I finally decided that, as little love as I have for Apple, I distrust Apple less than I distrust Microsoft. Once we get her data copied over from her old machine so I can nuke the drive, our home will be Windows-free*.
*(Other than the Win7 instance I very occasionally run in a VM for testing stuff related to my job.)
Thank you, Windows 10 and forced upgrades, for finally getting me off the fence!
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FWIW, I went through the exact same thing two months ago. Non-technical wife (accountant), never used anything but Windows on the desktop/laptop. I didn't want to go balls deep with a brand new MBP in case she hated it so I picked up a 2010 version for a few hundred off Ebay.
Installed Yosemite and bought an old copy of Office for Mac 2008 for $25 so she can run Excel. Then set up Virtualbox with Windows XP just to run her ancient version of Quicken until she can transition to a native Mac version at the
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Thanks, iBank and Moneydance were the first two I was going to have her evaluate.
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Lol did that post really come off like I was an Apple fanboy? Makes sense though...the hallmark of complete absorption into the reality distortion field is that you don't even know you're in it.
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He's saying that his wife found them intuitive. And he never mentioned right-click, you came up with that all by yourself, genius.
FWIW, I suspect that theskipper, like me, is mostly just glad he's found something that (a) works for his non-techy wife, (b) doesn't depend on Windows, and (c) doesn't require him to provide constant support just for her to learn the basics.
In any case, you've attempted to troll someone based on things they didn't say. FAIL.
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Why can't Apple have motives that are altruistic, and then also point out how different those motives are from Google's?
Because Apple are not altruistic. It is a public traded company and are not supposed to, or even allowed to be in some placed. and on top of that it has a long history of a sociopathic corporate culture.
In this particular topic, they have even less respect for privacy than Microsoft does, the difference being that Microsoft users were user to more respect.
MS? Privacy? Direct lies now company policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, how dishonest can you get? It is still not clear how to disable MS snooping completely and permanently in Win10 and, as updated cannot be blocked permanently at the moment, there is a permanent risk of them stepping up the snooping at any time. And they have the gall to claim they respect their user's privacy? This is a direct and blatant insult to any of their private customers.
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All this "doublespeak" is done by people, not a "Company", so if one works in a company, one has to give up one's integrity and surrender to the - let's call it "company spirit".
Why is this happening I don't know - is it fear driven (need to make a living some way, or some dream of "making it") and/or is the human mind so flexible that it just bends over and perceives this new program as reality?
With a psycho/sociopath this is clearly a pathologic behavior pattern happening in that manner damaging him/her
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No, that's backwards. The entire point of a corporation is to diffuse responsibility. People do these amoral things while working for a corporation because they don't have to take full responsibility. It is so much easier to amoral things when you are only 5% responsible. After all no one is a saint, being just 5% responsible is well within the range that people can do it and still think of themselves as a good person.
Re:MS? Privacy? Direct lies now company policy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or indicating that a spammer used those as generic addresses and you happened to have them enabled.
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I do something similar, but using wildcard subdomains... And i dont use the company name, but a code (where i keep a list of the codes related to what they were used for)... I have caught a few companies out this way, although i dont have anything registered with microsoft or adobe.
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Might want to make sure (if you do this sort of thing) that you read the terms and ensure they're not telling you that they'll be sharing your information with third parties. Spam filters are good enough now that I don't even worry about it. Hell, I have an email address posted in this response. Let 'em email me. I've got broadband and a spam filter.
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The problem is that a lot of seemingly anonymous data can be de-anonymized very easily. There is no harmless "analytics" data.
Lies and more lies (Score:1)
MSFT lost all credibility when they put a keyboard logger into Win10, then pushed anti-privacy "patches" to Win8 and Win7 machines as "critical security updates".
The unwanted, pre-download of Win10 to older releases was a dick move too.
My largest lie recently - that was the dog's fart, not mine.
"Tout" instead of "lie about"? (Score:2)
Translation: Lie to get positive PR. ???
When the day comes that companies and other customers don't need any more versions of operating systems, or a new cell phone, or new office software, Apple's and Microsoft's income will begin diminishing.
Their answer? It seems they want to sell information about users to advertisers, as does Google. So, it appears that they are trying to imitate Google. To imitate Google, it will be necessary t
off topic for a reason (Score:1)
am hoping for help blowing the old whistle, on the firehose on this article:
http://slashdot.org/submission... [slashdot.org]
please, if you have the time - i am quite serious - this is not a hoax.
however, the exploit would make one heck of a halloween trick or treat...
Reason for Free Update to Win 10 (Score:1)
Non-exhaustive list of MS's contempt for customers (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Phone:
- No way to use GPS locally without sending location to Microsoft
- No way to use WiFi locally without forced participation in location crowd sourcing
- No way to practically use device / install software without a Microsoft account
- No way to prevent windows phone with Microsoft account from transmitting location data to Microsoft
- No way to maintain a local address book without having it all automatically sent to Microsoft
- No way to prevent device specific identifiers from being sent (in the clear I might add) to Microsoft servers.
Windows:
- No way to prevent transmission of telemetry (Windows 10 non-enterprise SKUs)
- No way to prevent connections to MS servers (vortext, data, settings) when everything CEIP, updates, everything has been completely disabled (Windows 7)
- No way to disable automatic updates (Windows 10)
- No way to prevent CRL queries when CRL checking has been disabled (Windows 7)
- No user reachable knobs to disable mostly annoying and counterproductive NLA queries
- Disrespectful defaults and intentional UX elements such as misleading appearance of MS account requirement to trick people into using a MS account to access their local systems (windows 10)
Lies applicable to TFA:
"In the past, Windows could be thought of as software existing only on your device. Now with Windows 10, important parts of Windows are based in the cloud, interacting with online services"
This is non-specific BS to setup excuses for unacceptable privacy violations enumerated later in TFA.
"When you communicate with your friends, family, and business associates, like text messaging (SMS, MMS, etc.) on a Windows device, we have to get the content of the message to deliver it to your inbox, display it to you, enable you to reply to it, and store it for you until you delete it."
I'll leave this nonsense speak for itself.
"For real-time communications, a phone-calling app needs to know the phone number of the contact you want to reach. "
This is priceless because the calling app does not have a local store. What it really effectively means if you want to call anyone Microsoft needs to know the number.
"If you lose your phone, you can locate your Windows phone on a map using Find My Phone at https://account.microsoft.com.... [account.microsoft.com] Even if you have turned off all other access to the location service on the phone, this feature can still work. "
This is the problem there is no effective way to opt out even up front when initially setting up the device. The only possible option is to not associate a MS account which effectively renders the device a brick/feature phone.
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And for windows phone this is a viable option, there are plenty of other phones widely available and you wont be inconvenienced because you dont have a windows phone.
For desktop windows this isn't the case, alternatives are either not widely known (linux) or start at a much higher price point (apple), and if you are using one of the alternative you will often encounter inconvenience in the form of proprietary applications, files or third parties that force you towards using windows.
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I don't have a problem with any of these. Why? Am I a pro-Microsoft shill? Or just a rational user that isn't a paranoid fucking asshole.
Shh. The grownups are talking.
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"When you communicate with your friends, family, and business associates, like text messaging (SMS, MMS, etc.) on a Windows device, we have to get the content of the message to deliver it to your inbox, display it to you, enable you to reply to it, and store it for you until you delete it."
"For real-time communications, a phone-calling app needs to know the phone number of the contact you want to reach. "
Do they really think this low of their customers?
If the calling, texting app needs to know all this, where does MS come into picture. Its ok app needs to know it but why does this information have to leave my device to their server? Why does app on my device needs a Big Brother?
I shouldn't have to trust them (Score:1)
My computer should not be sending them the data in the first place. They can't abuse or "lose" data that they don't have. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google are all American companies, which means they could not be trusted even if they really meant what their privacy policies say.
TechNet has an article on Win10 telemetry levels (Score:2)
https://technet.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]
Scroogle? (Score:1)
Microsoft is bingin your bunghole.
I gotta admit (Score:2)
Sometimes the balls on Microsoft amazes me. To tout themselves as some sort of champion of privacy right after releasing the spyingest operating system they've ever released is an awe-inspiring move.
This is a Breakthrough Though (Score:1)
Run Windows inside Linux Cut off frm Internet? (Score:1)