Slashdot Mirror

I've replaced hard drives, RAM, WiFi, keyboards, power supplies, video cards, batteries and more in many normal laptops.

True, laptops allow RAM and hard drive upgrades and replacing dead keyboards and batteries. But a lot of laptops have video or WLAN circuitry soldered to the motherboard. A lot of others use only a video card or WLAN card whitelisted by the laptop's manufacturer so that the laptop keeps its FCC and HDCP certification.

Of course, the market for "tiny laptops with long battery lives" is so niche

So niche that even Walmart is selling Chromebooks, and Microsoft has had manufacturers bring back the 10" Windows laptop for its Scroogled campaign. So the discontinuation of netbooks lasted only from the beginning to the end of 2013.

Didn't M$ run an ad campaign dissing Google for scanning email for personal information? They say "Think Google respects your privacy? Think again." http://www.scroogled.com/mail hypocrites!

Did you know that when you buy an app in the Google Play Store, Google sends the neighborhood where you live to the app developers? That is why I prefer the Lumia phones with Windows, because Microsoft respects your privacy.

Also, Microsoft only wants to know your location so that they can protect you. If something were to happen to you they would send an SMS to people you trust (they would get their numbers from your SMS history) and they would send an ambulance to your location (that's the only reason they got it).

You see? Microsoft is actually amazing and really cares about your privacy! =D You can get more information about how Microsoft is totally not stealing your data at http://www.scroogled.com/

You can tell I am serious and trustwrothy because I am using a smiley face: =D

Microsoft's CEO has sworn to "fucking kill Google", saying "I've done it before and I can do it again." He's spending several billion dollars a year on that effort, historically more than $16 Billion if you include aQuantive. He's spending several billion dollars a year on the Google-bashing campaign. It's not like Microsoft is some random developer here innocently trying to get their app to work.

No,you just are not the target of that campaign, there are enough retards that will buy that claim. To put an example Now Windows 8.1 will use what is in your local disk to give you targetted ads. Remember Microsoft campaign of don't get scroogled? Probably the people that will install Windows 8.1 but complained about google's invasion of privacy fits pretty well into that category.

Who would be the constructor?

I can think of a couple of candidates.

some sort of evidence for your claim?

Cnet: you're left with no doubt that you're being recorded.

Here is Microsoft's statement:

Outlook.com only scans the contents of your email to help protect you and display, categorize, and sort your mail appropriately. Just like the postal service sorts and scans mail and packages for dangerous explosives and biohazards, Outlook.com scans your mail to help prevent spam, gray mail, phishing scams, viruses, malware, and other dangers and annoyances. Microsoft and its email services, including Outlook.com, Hotmail, and Office 365, do not use the content of customers’ private emails, communications, or documents to target advertising.

http://www.scroogled.com/OurPosition

Please stop spreading misleading FUD for karma. Your post getting to +4 informative is what's wrong with Slashdot.

The wording on that line does not preclude Microsoft letting others use the content of customers’ private emails, communications, or documents to target advertising and getting paid a kickback.

Here is Microsoft's statement:

Outlook.com only scans the contents of your email to help protect you and display, categorize, and sort your mail appropriately. Just like the postal service sorts and scans mail and packages for dangerous explosives and biohazards, Outlook.com scans your mail to help prevent spam, gray mail, phishing scams, viruses, malware, and other dangers and annoyances. Microsoft and its email services, including Outlook.com, Hotmail, and Office 365, do not use the content of customers’ private emails, communications, or documents to target advertising.

http://www.scroogled.com/OurPosition

Please stop spreading misleading FUD for karma. Your post getting to +4 informative is what's wrong with Slashdot.

AFAIK Bing / MS Mail (whatever its called now) has historically scanned email in the same way as google

And you would be wrong.

Here is Microsoft's statement on what Outlook does not do:

Outlook.com only scans the contents of your email to help protect you and display, categorize, and sort your mail appropriately. Just like the postal service sorts and scans mail and packages for dangerous explosives and biohazards, Outlook.com scans your mail to help prevent spam, gray mail, phishing scams, viruses, malware, and other dangers and annoyances. Microsoft and its email services, including Outlook.com, Hotmail, and Office 365, do not use the content of customers’ private emails, communications, or documents to target advertising.

http://www.scroogled.com/OurPosition

This has been Microsoft's position since at least 2010.

Microsoft does target ads through tracking cookies, like Google, yes. But they offer, like Google, a nice way to opt out of this. This site shows all the information they have on you and a centralized way to opt out of it all: https://choice.microsoft.com/en-US

As for Bing, one of the nicer points of its privacy policy over Google is this statement:

We store search terms (and the cookie IDs associated with search terms) separately from any account information that directly identifies the user, such as name, e-mail address, or phone numbers. We have technological safeguards in place designed to prevent the unauthorized correlation of this data and we remove the entirety of the IP address after 6 months, cookies and other cross session identifiers, after 18 months.

http://www.microsoft.com/privacystatement/en-us/bing/default.aspx

I don't believe Google has a similar clause in their privacy policy.

Finally, it's worth remembering that Google earns 96% of their revenue from advertising. They are an advertising company and thrive on delivering relevant ads to you. When it comes down to it, when the choice is between your privacy and their company, your interests will always lose.