[thescrewdriver]

Until recently Microsoft had taken a far more reasonable approach to privacy than say Google. Anyone remember the MS "gmail man" ads mocking the way Google inspects your email when MS doesn't? It seems that MS under Nadella has taken a decidedly Google-like turn away from privacy with Windows 10. MS seems as hell-bent as Google and Facebook to collect as much data about you as possible, even if it is for seemingly innocuous purposes.

[toyg]

> Anyone remember the MS "gmail man" ads mocking the way Google inspects your email

Yes, and they were widely mocked. Privacy fears don't really sell, especially when deployed 10 years too late by a company that is the definition of "establishment".

[api]

This is the difference between the HN audience and the general audience.

In general, the average user doesn't care about privacy or security at all.

I develop a network virtualization product, and I spent a ton of time on security aspects of it. Sometimes I feel like that time might have been wasted, because it has thousands and thousands of users and so far not one single person has inquired about anything related to its security. Not one. It blows me away.

[redml]

At least with google I know they're trying to sell me ads and I'm the product.

With windows 10, I have to pay for the software, and somehow I'm still the product? I don't know their end game, and its really sketchy.

[rhino369]

Competition is often a race to the bottom. Chromebooks are a huge threat to Windows hegemony.

Microsoft lost the internet and mobile platforms to Google. They are going to fight tooth and nail for the PC.

If the average person doesn't give a shit about privacy (and they truely don't), then Microsoft will not be able to charge for products Google supports for free with spying/ads.

[mark_l_watson]

+1 I upvoted you, but dissagree slightly: the web version of Office 365 works great on my Chromebook. Microsoft gets $100/year from me for Office 365 and I am happy enough even though I don't install the desktop versions of Word, Excell, etc. Worth $100/year for a gig per family member of cloud storage and the web versions of Office.

[inversionOf]

"Anyone remember the MS "gmail man" ads mocking the way Google inspects your email when MS doesn't?"

Did anyone actually fall for that?

Intelligent systems need information to function, and when the intelligence is personalized, it needs personal information. One of the reasons Google has succeeded is because of that personal information, providing services that have enough context that they are three quarters of the way to my destination before I've even started.

It is enormously jarring how over the top Microsoft went with Windows 10, with insane defaults and little justification, but this is the manifestation of the whole "cloud like" platform. Increasingly we expect a world where a device is just a terminal into a platform, and we can jump to different devices and form factors and the world is almost the same. That is what Microsoft is trying for, clumsily.

[jevgeni]

How is Google scanning massively one's emails a requirement for "intelligent systems" and is OK, but Microsoft sending telemetry data is "over the top"?

[TsomArp]

An algorithm reading your email to look for words to server better ads is hardly spying imho. I rather see ads of things that interest me than ads for casinos. And I'm hardly a MS lover.

[jazzyk]

Unless, of course they are looking for the words "male", "escort", "date" in e-mails from a (most likely Republican) Senator, married with kids :-)

Joking aside, you realize what you just have said is naive? Any form of privacy invasion can be - and eventually will be - used for nefarious purposes.

[interdrift]

Then open-source the algorithms and give security to people!!