Slashdot Mirror
MS Targets Google With Another Smear Campaign
walterbyrd writes with news that Microsoft's PR department has started a campaign to convince Gmail users that Google reads your personal emails, referring to Google's automated method of scanning emails for keywords to generate supposedly relevant advertising.
"The gist of the scare campaign is that Google is a scary, scary company that reads your private emails in order to send you targeted ads. 'Even if you don't use Gmail, if you send email to someone who does, Google goes through those emails to generate advertising revenue too,' Microsoft warns in material sent to reporters. Oh, and Microsoft points out that six class-action lawsuits have been filed against Google over this issue, and asks people to sign a petition 'to tell Google to stop going through your personal email messages.'"
They had the tagline of 'Don't get scroogled' then directed the viewer to go to outlook.com The production values were atrocious.
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
What I'd like from MSFT: a guarantee (legal contract) that MSFT will not do the same on the new Outlook.com.
Futurist Traditionalism
The best kind of propaganda is true, and that's what this is. Obviously Microsoft neglects to tell you about all of their invasions of your privacy, but that doesn't make Google's any less true.
Simple --- sign up with Microsoft's email service so that Microsoft can rummage through your emails instead of google.
if MS wants to win, they should instead focus on creating a better user experience.
Can everybody please start now?
i signed up only to find out they don't have two-factor authentication. I won't be logging back in again.
Unlike Microsoft which produces an Operating System that reads all of the data on your hard drive.
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
I think it's more than a bit disingenuous because the video has this person's eyes superimposed over your e-mail while mischievous music plays in the background. We all know that it's not a person reading the e-mails, it's software doing latent semantic indexing or some such algorithm.
They might not be lying but they are deceiving. Tell me how my Hotmail knows how to classify incoming e-mails as spam again? OH! You're running a Bayesian classification algorithm and building word statistics out of my e-mail?! They're reading my e-mails! Cue judging eyeballs over my e-mail with corny music.
Note: I'm not defending Google but I'm pretty sure that some type of software runs some sort of algorithm on your e-mails if you go through any reputable major e-mail provider. Hell, my debian postfix server is attached to a bunch of algorithmic open source programs to do just that!
My work here is dung.
If I did, though, I would of course assume that everything sent via those services was pretty much public (not that anyone would care). But then, unencrypted email is never confidential anyway.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Sure, it's a scare campaign. But, all they are doing is pointing out the facts, that we've long known, to the masses.
I've got lots of throw away Google accounts. But, I don't consistently use GMail or any other Google services for the very reasons that they point out and more. Likewise the POS that is Facebook.
Doesn't Microsoft do the /exact same thing/ with Bing/Hotmail?
Not saying it's not wrong, but pot, kettle.
While I admit that the allegations are essentially true, Microsoft is just bothered that it didn't come up with the idea first. No one should conflate Microsoft's criticism as an endorsement of Microsoft's concern for users.
Whenever I use an e-mail service I don't fully own, I assume someone else will eventually read my messages. Frankly, nothing I send out is sensitive or important, or something that can't indirectly be obtained through third party sources.
Maybe I'm weird, but I listen to my gut feeling that tells me Google is more trustworthy than Microsoft.
So. My work e-mail can be read by my employer (I know that for a fact) and is automatically scanned for sensitive words, especially if I send e-mails to external addresses. My personal e-mail is automatically scanned by Google. I say, let them do it, I'm trying hard to determine if there was any message I sent or received that would piss me off when read. And yes, I'm a very light message sender, my Google account activity report for last month shows 7 sent messages, up 40% compared to previous month. One was a reply to a virus link sent by a contact, telling him he has a virus. Two were responses to career opportunities, telling them "I reject your proposal". Three were responses in a conversation with my son's doctor, about his treatment, and one was a cancellation of an online order. Big deal.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
"Microsoft's PR department has started a campaign to convince Gmail users that Google reads your personal emails, referring to Google's automated method of scanning emails for keywords to generate supposedly relevant advertising".
...
Exactly the same way that Windows Live Hotmail does it
"We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services." link
AccountKiller
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
Google requires that labor conditions for the outsourced workers be upgraded to modern sweatshop levels, just like Apple.
You would actually trust a promise from McRsft, would you? It's not like Privacy Policies are written to be broken...
between listen to and believe
were nearing the last straws on the camels(balmer) back
BRING ON THE STRAWS!!
He said conflate....
Much as I hate to side with MS (okay, I do like my Xbox), they've got a point on this one, even if they're doing it for all the wrong reasons. I do find it really fucking creepy that gmail is parsing my private email, no matter what their justification. I would hate to be conducting a search at work in front of my boss and have a bunch of "Hey, you're gay, so check this out!" advertising pop up because I sent some highly personal emails to a gay partner. Not to mention the fact that since they've established that they have the tech to parse emails for advertising, you know the government is going to come calling (probably already have) to make them parse emails for "national security" too. Fuck that noise.
Now go ahead and mod me down for daring to defend MS on slashdot. But you may want to think about this the next time google returns an ad that seems to know WAY too much about your personal life.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I have recently seen both quotes + and - ignored by google. Seriously WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Google google cheat sheet. If their own operators are no longer working the end is definitely fucking neigh for google as my search engine. I was deeply annoyed when this was happening in froogle (sic) but when MBA bullshit propagates into the search window I am looking else where.
So does anyone have any other options?
Is there a website that tracks google misbehaving?
Does your automated scanning and classification collect detailed statistics about conversation and subject matters to be used in a virtual dossier of all of your activities across the entire internet? The answer is obviously not.
But, we know well that this is EXACTLY what Google is doing. That it is automated is, to me even more scary than a person watching. That it's only used for ads(today), is annoying. That it could and likely will be used for God knows what in the future is the real disturbing bit.
What would happen if I opened an email account with gmail, and sent all ads to an outlook.com account, and viceversa... Would they reach equilibrium, or would the chaos ensue?
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Well, it's not entirely true. I think most people consider the definition of reading to mean "looked" at and that it is implicitly a human that is reading your e-mail in this case. The eyes superimposed in the first video imply this. What's actually happening is that your e-mail is being loaded into memory and parsed to build an index associated with some key that is associated with you and that is being stored. This data is then used to serve targeted ads. Do you really think that a person is involved at any point so far? Do you really think there's a Google employee looking over raw table data and rubbing one out when he sees that "ky jelly" is associated with user 57234765235 at a rate of 0.0054% of the time with a high precision value? Really? Show me a mail service provider that neither loads your e-mail into memory (alias "reads" it) nor stores it in a database and I'll show you extraterrestrial beings.
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Really? Where are Google's commercials of equal proportions? I guarantee you they would make for a story just like this.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
Just because one evil is smearing another evil of less, equal or greater proportions doesn't make it not a smear campaign! This is exactly what it is! Disingenuous advertising meant to unduly spread uncertainty and deceit! How does Microsoft detect spam? The same damn way!
My work here is dung.
Why doesn't google just come back saying Hotmail, because you love hackers stealing your account!
Are we meant to believe Bing isn't crawling Hotmail?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Don't forget that.
Anyone who believes Google hired enough people to read the millions of email it handles per day deserves Microsoft.
Don't stop where the ink does.
If you want to keep something secret, don't write it down, and best of all, don't email it to someone. Nothing is private on the internet, and if you don't treat the internet like that, then you have only yourself to blame.
If you think otherwise, then you are a fool.
Be seeing you...
Google = Do no harm
Microsoft = Do harm
Pretty simple actually.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/02/08/1516238/ms-targets-google-with-another-smear-campaign
Its surprising that we have now entered a world were scum like this get hired instead or competing on innovation and quality. How much further can Microsoft Sink.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battles-google-by-hiring-political-brawler-mark-penn.html?_r=1&
If you want to know more details about Microsoft's Head of the pleasant "Strategic and special projects"
Microsoft is a dirty dirty dirty company.
Now I feel safe.
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
What I'd like from MSFT: a guarantee (legal contract) that MSFT will not do the same on the new Outlook.com.
What I would like from MSFT is client side encryption of all the email stored on Outlook.com and Skydrive for that matter. And, of course, if I set a PGP Public Key (or S/Mime public key) all e-mail sent to me gets encrypted right after the anti-spam/anti-mailware tools run and before it get stored on their servers.
It IS a smear campaign. Tech Crunch and Read Write are trying to smear Microsoft for pointing out the truth.
Well with the combined power of the Echelon partnership rummaging through all my communications, what's a little Google added for flavour?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Pot meet Kettle. Kettle, this is Pot:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/internet-privacy/microsoft-attacking-gmail-tactics-it-uses-itself-212455
Does anyone actually think e-mail is a private communication media?
The pot calling the kettle black IMO.
Every user in my organization knows and signs a form that e-mail is NOT secure or private. I could care less what people are e-mailing but this truth needs to be understood. Unless you do some high-powered encryption, you need to treat your e-mail as if it being read. I archive all incomming and outgoing e-mail for a minimum of five years and this archive can be used for document discovery and even be a matter of public record if so ordered.
The inevitable next step by Kim Dotcom's Mega.co.nz's completely encrypted file sharing is completely encrypted messaging. When that takes off, Google's evil practice of not encrypting mail will be left for dust. They're going to lose a lot of customers unless they decide to jump first. Which, as you can see, will lose them more revenue.
Pot calls Kettle black, hear all about it and other useless but true facts.
Hmm, hotmail offers spam filtering and also targeted ads. How does Microsoft do that if they aren't "reading" emails the same way Gmail does?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's actually a bit worse than MS is saying here.
If GMail user Anne sends mail to GMail user Bob, then Bob will see ads based on not only
email he has received, but also on the basis of what Anne sent to Carl.
This became strikingly obvious to me when a friend sent mail and I got car and
car loan ads. The languages involved made it clear this wasn't based on things
in my mailbox and he confirmed that, yes, he was car shopping.
I had a landlord that went to Stanford, one of his friend's went on to work at Google and he could look through Gmail boxes if he wanted. They weren't supposed to do it but they did. This was early on so they may have added security, but my landlord would not use Gmail because of this.
Microsoft that "pillar of integrity" and "fountain of truth" is accusing Google of being naughty. Really?
Somebody owes me a keyboard.
Has anyone looked at the Privacy link at the bottom of the login screen for outlook.com?
http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.mspx
Quoting here: "Uses of Information: Additional Details
We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of personalized content and advertising.
We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services.
We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties. In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to other companies that work on our behalf."
So they can personalize content and advertising, send you offers, and provide it to other companies.
s/Google Mail/outlook.com/ and the claims appear to be the same.
I think M$ biggest grief with Google, is that an "Ad" company write better software than a "Software" company. ;-)
Yeah, you are participating in a public process (the internet) and when you send an email, (if you do not own the email server(s) involved) then you have no say-so on what happens with the email (info) after that, nor should you. Also, everything that you do now is possibly tracked (How long until the big companies start hiring random local people to do things like:
Walk around neighborhoods and:
gather data on who goes to work when
what cars people drive / home price
how many children live in each house
Sit in local coffee (any) shops and:
listen to the latest scuttlebutt in that area
gather data on what's commonly purchased at the shop
Walk around the local Wall-mart and:
see what types of things people buy in bulk, and/or at the same time)
There are no laws in America (that I know of) in regard to data collected on people by private companies. Until then, we will all be getting used to being looked at by the big companies that rule us, as their property.
looks more like microsoft projecting their corporate culture and business practices on others than anything else.
Oh well, at least we still have startpage and DDG.
"Three may keep Counsel, if two be away."-- Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732)
"Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead." -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1735)
"Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." -- T.S. Elliot
"Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright." -- Aaron Sorkin
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Do they mention that they monitor all skype conversations, and refuse to disclose what they do with the data from it? Or should that not be scary?
I don't pay for GMail. If I'm not the customer, I'm the product being sold.
Come to grips with that statement and all of this outcry over "free" services doing other stuff goes away. It's a fact of life.
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. It's the Business Way!"
--Paraphrased and mangled from "Jim Malone" from "The Untouchables"
Point is, all them are evil in one way or another. I don't trust Google any more, or less, than Apple, Microsoft, GM, Ford, etc.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Smear has the connotation that what is being said is either not true, or exaggerated beyond the point. That is not the case. Fucking /. I realize you have to hate MS because you just have to, but do you have to deliver biased reporting? What good is it for you to call MS out for being reckless with the truth when your own treatment of MS is guilty of the same invalid scrutiny? Is this a news site or isn't it?
Who loved that video?!?!
As a member of the local hackerspace, I receive a ton of emails via their mailing list. There was recently a lot of discussion about acquiring some liquid nitrogen for some experiments. Fast-forward a couple days, now I get banner ads on Youtube for sementanks.com which isn't embarrassing at all.
In fact, we had it right here on Slashdot the day Gmail was announced. We panicked about Google reading our email. Then, if you follow to the bottom of that thread you will see the same conclusion we reached here today. No one is reading your email. An algorithm is parsing it the same way all spam filters do.
That was 2004. We probably moved on after that, but about 4 years later Steve Ballmer himself started to use this misunderstanding to generate fear, uncertainty and doubt. A year after that, Google was sued over it.
The people behind this new campaign at Microsoft either don't remember all of this, or they're smart enough to see that it's been long enough to sound like a new issue. Let's not treat it as one. This issue should not be news to anyone reading this site. The only news here is that Microsoft is trying to use this misunderstanding again, ie. that a person is reading your mail, not an algorithm.
Microsoft must be reading emails too because the bing bot visits unpublished links that I emailed using hotmail
MS and Google are really in the same business, but I would submit this to you;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/18/did-microsoft-change-the-architecture-of-skype-to-make-it-easier-to-snoop/
If you don't see the problem here, you're not thinking hard enough.
Microsoft is experiencing the first stages of a death spiral now that their entry into mobile and tablet markets is a dismal failure and they have done nothing to boost PC enthusiasm. All Microsoft can rely on know is their services, however Bing is now in 5th place for search engines. Hotmail is largely used by people that wanted a second email for stuff they know will spam them, and just converting it to Outlook doesn't make it any less likely people will use it for their primary email.
I really don't care what Google does with a collection of keywords collected in my email. Nobody at Google is personally reading my email, and even so, what of it? Had there been even one single case of a Google employee abusing the information gained from scanning emails to relate to advertising then I could fully back Microsoft's campaign, but its just not the case.
Personally all Microsoft is going to have for customers is a bunch of conspiracy theory nuts and people significant paranoia issues. If this is the kind of user base you want to cultivate by this kind of smear campaign, go right ahead, but I doubt it will save Microsoft in the long run.
The only thing Google should do about this is ignore it. I would rather have a user base of smart rational individuals any day, so let Microsoft bleed the crazies away from Google.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Microsoft has been doing this for some time. Anyone remember Microsofts infamous "Gmail Man" spot?
I for one would welcome our Bayesian filtering Overlords.
They shall spill forth from Artesian wells.
The invasion had begun with the introduction of the foul and mysterious word 'mesian' into our language ... a word none can define --- yet somehow by dark design has become acceptable for use in Scrabble.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The obvious retort is that because google is doing "dumb" semantic analysis like key word searches that it's not "reading" your e-mails. But that's a naive. In ten year semantic analysis of text will be approaching human comprehension. There will be no difference between a human reading and a computer reading in terms of the harm this might have for you. Furthermore those e-mails you write now will be fully avaialble to google in the future. Google might even change it's policy and let humans read your e-mails. You gave them permission. How do do you know what google will do int he next ten years? Maybe some credit agency will pay them $100 per user account to see all your e-mails.
Mean while microsoft is actually promising in their user agreement that they will never ever do that to you. There's thus a big difference.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
People have freedom of choice in their email providers, let them switch to a new email service or, for better privacy, they could host their own mail server.
Just like the guys who discovered the identity of the Netflix user by looking at anonymised data of viewing habits, can you write a program that displays ads to Gmail users and figure out what a person has in their inbox?
Should be interesting.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft's case, that is. I find the sexual connotations of the word "scroogled" to be far more offensive than the rather unimpressive right nipple of Janet Jackson.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
All of these companies are competing for your dollars directly and information that they can sell about you to other companies. instead of mining minerals, they're mining our data. You see it with things like so called anonymous data collection and researchers who have found that they can identify people just based on that same information. Any data collection about you, your e-mails, your e-mail habits, your web browsing habits, where you have lunch, what credit cards you use, what toll roads you traverse, what street speed cameras you pass it's all potential sources for data mining and taking a little more of your freedom and privacy. If you use a credit card, trust me they are selling your information, your preferences and tracking your habits so that if a strange charge shows up, they can detect fraud. At least that's what they say to you. Where you buy something also locates you as well, so if you shop locally, guess what, people can find out where you are. It's paranoia, it's the new reality so when you get that nice free Facebook account or the free GMAIL account it does come with some Terms of Service and they can change at any time to suit their needs, not yours. Google's business just isn't on search, it's on you. Facebook isn't about social networking, it's about social data collection so for all those people who think they have privacy and use these services, guess again.
So while you may not be plugged in as a battery to supply power to an alien civilization, you are a source of rich mineral data and you're being mined daily. If you're okay with that, just take the right colored pill and go back to sleep.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I'm ok with seeing ads tied to my emails from within the GMail interface, but does the privacy policy prevent Google from showing me an ad on some other Google site based on the contents of an email? They already scan my mail for boarding passes and give me notifications in Google Now, for example. If I see some targeted ad outside of GMail, that's when its crossing the line.
I feel like Google is building a huge database about me--they want me to "archive" instead of delete for a reason. As long as that magic database doesn't leak outside of the company and I continue to trust Google, I'm ok. Its starting to feel more and more like a leap of faith though.
For more than a few reasons, I have almost completely dropped Google services from my life: ... And those are just the main reasons.
1) Privacy. Google has far overstepped their boundaries (in my eyes). No, I'm not talking about GMail - I knew the deal there when signing up. Googles web tracking has increased massively over the last few years, via ad words and analytics. (Two things that did not exist when I started using Google services). I was even automatically and without my knowledge signed up for G+ account with the last GMail account i setup. I could go on with many many more examples.
2) Dropped services: Exchange email (no more push for iPhone), free Google apps are just recent examples.
3) Even if you are a paying customer, their customer service basically doesn't exist.
Like all once-young, once-cool, once-hip startups before it, Google retains little of what made them a desirable company to do business with.
And before you bitch about expectation of getting things for free, realize that I do pay for my services and never really had any problem doing that. I used Google out of convenience and not cheapness.
I realize the Google apologists are strong here, and fully expect this comment will be downmodded out of emotional response.
I am a bit confused when a crowd that regularly complains about privacy issues also complains about privacy features (or lack thereof) being discussed openly with consumers.
Of course, as with all discussions, the quality of arguments (tone, innuendo, etc) may vary. But this specific ad is hardly smear and Google is not a weakling. Google can certainly reply back if Microsoft actually lied and it would backfire on Microsoft.
So bring it on!
May consumers choose what features they prefer, hopefully with some more information.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
I thought people would have figured this out by now. When Google, or any other company, gives you something for "free" you have become the product. Any content that passes through the "free" service will be parsed, analyzed, compiled, archived and resold as the company sees fit in order to make money.
That is why I don't use Google. I don't use Facebook. I don't use any of the "free" services because in some way they will do something with my content that I don't want.
Google scans my emails for keywords to target advertising and Microsoft says that is bad. Microsoft, on the other hand, scans what applications I web pages I visit with IE and updates their search engine(even if I don't use their search engine) to which they sell advertising but that is good.
Google openly tells people they do this for the free version of their programs to cover the cost so they can remain free - but Microsoft still says that is bad. Microsoft, on the other hand, denied the search engine data harvesting and claimed entrapment, but again, their approach is good.
If Microsoft were so certain they were morally correct in all of this, then why would they design a David vs Goliath commercial to tell everybody about it instead of just coming out to let you know the ad is sponsored by Microsoft?
Maybe Microsoft should check the color of their kettle before commenting on the color Google's pot.
A noble sentiment. Problem is, the current US Supreme Court in riddled with partisan ideologues that have no problem with corporations having human rights, the non-judicial killing of citizens, and especially police state surveillance systems.
This grand experiment in representative democracy is over. All we can hope for is bureaucratic incompentence to temper the increasingly ubiquitous tyranny.
${DEITY}, I wish that were true.
Where I live, the fundies (want to outlaw anything their brand of religious morals disapproves of) largely own the "conservative" label, and have no interest in letting true Libertarians into their club.
No, it's negative publicity what's illegal. If you want people to buy your stuff, promote it. Don't put the others down.
Dude, have you ever seen one of our political campaigns? Any law like that has exactly zero chance of ever getting passed here. Or the politicians would need to actually campaign on their own values and accomplishments and not by trying to manipulate the truth and facts so that no one has any idea of who said what or went where. Plus it would put all the super pacs out of business and also it wou-* ... oh....
err, Sorry ....
...got carried away
Please carry on with the topic at hand
"Oh Kettle (Google), thou are BLACK!" - Pot (Microsoft)
Wrong. I am the supplier of the inputs for the product that is being packaged by Google and sold to advertisers, and Gmail is (one of many parts of) the payment Google provides to me in return for providing those inputs.
If I am not satisfied that the payment is sufficient value for what Google is asking in exchange, I stop providing the inputs and reject the payment.
Personally, I briefly held a Hotmail address. While I hadn't been using it, my non-obvious, hard to guess address still received a significant amount of spam. It's pretty much a smoking gun that they're sharing things they shouldn't, whether they do something similar with content or not.
for crowd sourcing cash to create anti commercials to fight BS.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Sure they parse your email to show you ads, but they are also building detailed profiles on each user. Gee - how could that turn out to be a TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE THING TO ALLOW???
Doesn't everyone use AdBlock?
I don't care that they scan my email. If I wanted privacy, I'd revert back to pen and paper and manually deliver my precious content to someone else. The paper would combust within a few minutes of opening.
...is like undressing in front of your cat. There's no comprehension going on there at all. If you're embarrassed, you're just being a moron.
GMail DOES indeed look for keywords in your mail to serve you targeted advertising.
It's not a smear campaign if it's absolutely true.
The sig is mainly aimed at leftists who frequently call libertarians conservative in spite of the fact that they want to end the drug war, promote equal protection under the law including marriage equality, end interventionary foreign policy, reform immigration, etc. etc.
There's really nothing conservative about libertarians at all, they hate almost everything about the status quo.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Even simpler: sign up with fastmail.fm for only $4.95/year, and nobody will rummage through your emails. If you are not willing to spare this miniscule amount, have you any right to be incensed that Google tries to extract some value from you through ads on their totally free service?
Google is more evil than Microsoft ever was.
This is funny ... one greedy, corrupt and unethical company talking about *another* company being greedy, corrupt and unethical !
Microsoft shold throw Apple and Intel in the mix too ... but they are too much in bed with the latter.
What's wrong with this picture ?
That the computers parse your email and use the information for both ads and better services. Its not only for ads, although generally targeted ads are better in my opinion.
If you tried Google Now on Android it will give you notifications about stuff the servers parsed from your email, like flight notifications for the flight booking notifications you received in your email etc.
Recently I have given up on my illusion of "privacy" (running ADBlock, Ghostery and WOT I am still pretty sure I am being tracked by ad networks). So I decided to stop fighting the battle I have lost long time ago. I have uploaded my whole email archive to GMail so Google can index it and start being my electronic nanny. And it is by far the best electronic nanny there is.
And I am pretty sure that both Yahoo and Microsoft are doing targeted ads based on email content, and Yahoo used to append their ads to emails.
And if you don't want your emails to be ready by anyone but the intended recipient and NSA, there is a tool called PGP.
It's so refreshing to see Microsoft going back to methods they know better then anything else =)
Of course they're "reading your emails". They're analyzed and graphed, completely and totally. Google knows what you say, where you are and when, where you live, what you read, your sexual preferences, your interests, probably what you eat, and has a satellite photo of your house.
There are no humans to read through it all, there's no need for that. It's just a big pile of data, but as soon as you go read up on what can be done with big piles of data, suddenly you stop worrying about privacy : it's completely dead. Or rather, it's stored on Google. And facebook. And twitter. And whatever Microsoft calls Hotmail this week. And partly shared with the rest of the Internet.
And who goes see what published part of all that data is monitored by various federal agencies using deep packet inspection and other methods. So, yeah, the concept of privacy is dead. It's just a matter of who can go read what, and to what extent they're accountable. (Official agencies just pick up the phone and companies bend over backwards to get deep-probed, companies pretend not to share with one another, but really it's just unless you pony up more than what it's worth Right Now, and people who simply use the information systems are all criminals by default one way or another.)
You don't have accounts, on google/fb/whatever? Okay, they're still tracking you. When a site uses the Google API, of Facebook API, your computer sends a request to those servers. Those requests are logged, and they can track what you watch/read/see. It doesn't matter if your name doesn't appear in the data they have, they don't need it. They have one more person about whom they know most everything, so whose name it pertains to is irrelevant. And there are techniques to uniquely identify people even if they're trying to not be identified. Five ways to store flash cookies lol, anyone? Tracking a stream of Facebook App_IDs from server-side? It's enough to keep one key/value pair between a page and the next, then a key/value from that one to the next, and you can reconstruct the whole clickstream. Not even beginning to talk about reading the whole browser history and other server->client attacks.
You may use extreme techniques to not be tracked, but then you're in such a small fraction of their market that it doesn't matter : they track everyone else with enough success.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
computationally speaking, Microsoft's "Scroogled" Campaign it utter garbage.
Here's why (from a high-level technically stand-point):
Privacy is only truly violated when there exists some form of device IO of private information, in clear-text. For gmail to have code that performs in-memory comparisons of email text and advertisement content, to be considered a breach of privacy is complete crap. Yes, you can start nit-picking with issues such as whether buffers of data are not being left hanging around memory, or if gmail's method of requesting data from ad-servers can some how provide clues in logging files somewhere that could allow Googler #247 to infer that Johnny is sending emails about ant-farms. But, it all comes down to whether or not personal information is being written out somewhere for humans to read (whether indirectly or directly).
Having worked at software companies that jump through all kind of hoops to ensure that data is sanitized ad naseum: I highly doubt that Google is allowing their employees, let alone third-parties to freely spy on users.
That's the whole privacy-concerns-flavored cherry on top.
Microsoft Kinect Spy System
THIS ARTICLE IS BEING SCRUBBED FROM THE NET. THE SITE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED TO YANKED THE PLUG ON THEIR WHOLE SITE!!! COPY/PASTE THIS ARTICLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO DISCUSSION FORUMS, BLOGS, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND ARCHIVE AND MIRROR THIS DOCUMENT SO IT DOES NOT VANISH FOREVER!
Written by Alphonse
"So you just got the Kinect/Xbox360 gaming system and you're having fun, hanging out in your underwear, plopped down in your favorite lounge chair, and playing games with your buddies. Yeah, it's great to have a microphone and camera in your game system so you can "Kinect" to your pals while you play, but did you read that Terms of Service Agreement that came with your Kinect thingy? No? Here, let me point out an important part of that service agreement.
If you accept the agreement, you "expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft, our partners, or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the Service; or (c) act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
Did you catch that? Here, let me print the important part in really big letters.
"If you accept the agreement, you expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications⦠on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
OK, is that clear enough for ya? When you use the Kinect system, you agree to allow Microsoft (and any branch of law enforcement or government they care to share information with) to use your Kinect system to spy on you. Maybe run that facial recognition software to check you out, listen to your conversations, and keep track of who you are communicating with.
I know this is probably old news to some, but I thought I would mention it because it pertains to almost all of these home game systems that are interactive. You have to remember, the camera and microphone contained in your game system has the ability to be hacked by anyone the game company gives that ability to, and that includes government snoops and law enforcement agents.
Hey, it's MICROSOFT. What did you expect?
And the same concerns apply to all interactive game systems. Just something to think about if you're having a "Naked Wii party" or doing something illegal while you're gaming with your buddies. Or maybe you say something suspicious and it triggers the DHS software to start tracking your every word. Hey, this is not paranoia. It's spelled out for you, right there in that Service Agreement. Read it! Here's one more part of the agreement you should be aware of.
"You should not expect any level of privacy concerning your use of the live communication features (for example, voice chat, video and communications in live-hosted gameplay sessions) offered through the Service."
Did you catch it that time? YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT ANY LEVEL OF PRIVACY concerning your voice chat and video features on your Kinect box."
###
"Listen up, you ignorant sheep. Your government is spending more money than ever to spy on its own citizens. That's YOU, my friend. And if you're one of these people who say, "Well I ain't ever done nothing wrong so why should I worry about it?' - you are dead wrong. Our civil liberties are being taken away faster than you can spit. The NSA is working away on its new "First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center' to keep track of every last one of us. This thing will be the size of 17 football stadiums. One million square feet, all to be filled with more technology and data storag
Tell the government to stop reading my e-mails while you're at it.
There's really nothing worthwhile about libertarians at all, they're fucking idiots about almost everything.
Once the good company, now the shit company, Google is ruining all of their services and not keeping Android up to date on even their own Nexus branded devices.
I'd RATHER use Microsoft than Google nowadays. They are less evil.
Conservatives can want revolution, but it matters who the revolution is for. For Conservatives and especially Libertarians is is change to favor an elite, An elite that thinks it deserves the benefits of civilization more than many other groups in society, an elite that imagines itself as more productive and more worthy than groups its labels as unproductive or as not contributing enough.
What distinguishes Conservatives from other persuasions is that they see inclusiveness and universality, you know, the idea that most people are more or less alike and have the same st of needs and urges, as a threat, and that they want to dictate the rules for who can be included.
This is a point of view predicated on scarcity, of money, of the benefits of life, or specie. So groups who worship gold or business, view themselves as special and entitled. Elites can come from many sources. they can come from religion, wealth, race, education, profession, and ideology. There are Communist elites, for example, but regardless of the political classification, it is the them vs. us mentality that is diagnostic.
The sig is mainly aimed at leftists who frequently call libertarians conservative in spite of the fact that they want to end the drug war, promote equal protection under the law including marriage equality, end interventionary foreign policy, reform immigration, etc. etc.
There's really nothing conservative about libertarians at all, they hate almost everything about the status quo.
What is conservative about Libertarians is their economics. Giving more freedom to capital entrenches the status quo.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
Not that MS would take advantage of scroogling for their own benefit... or would they?
http://imgur.com/fQqRJwX
That's what it sounds like to me.
gosgog:
I'm not sure but I think it was Apple's dead boss that figured out that checking one's Browser was the way to figure individual users interest and thus provide targeting for advertisiers. And y'all dont think MSN has jumped on it too. This current attack is more than likely because Google has long since surpassed MS's browser as well as Firefox, & all the others. MS is no longer top dog in anything and so its just another BooHoo bit on their part. Their latest O/S system is just another loser like Millenium.
I believe Govt, not Google is reading your emails.
Casteism
This is the oddest topic considering that Microsoft has owned Facebook advertising for awhile now.
Apparently, Facebook is buying some of it back though.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/05/facebook-display-advertising-microsoft-bing/
Is there a Microsoft smear campaign against Facebook in the works?
"Get microshafted"
This is why I run my own email server, I maintain 100% privacy on my emails and I don't have to worry about all these scar tactics. It may be a "post privacy society" but me for one, still keep privacy when ever I can.....