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Microsoft: the 'Scroogled' Show Must Go On
theodp writes "Microsoft says that the death of its 'Scroogled' ad campaign against Google has been greatly exaggerated. 'Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people,' said a Microsoft spokesperson. 'Nearly 115,000 people signed a petition asking Google to stop going through their Gmail.' So, is Microsoft's scare campaign justified? Well, in a recently-published patent application for a Method and System for Dynamic Textual Ad Distribution Via Email, Google explains how its invention can be used to milk more money from advertisers by identifying lactating Moms, which might make some uneasy. Google also illustrates how advertisers can bid on access to those suffering from breast cancer, bi-polar disorder, depression, and panic anxiety. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?"
How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did.
All in all, that technology isn't all that surprising to me....
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Those two patent drawings are plenty scary.
This reminds me of the late '80s, when people still identified IBM and AT&T as the big bad boys and were willing to give Microsoft (which seemed like a scrappy startup led by a shy kid with thick glasses and long hair) a pass.
Fast forward 25 years. Microsoft is the new IBM. Oracle is the new DEC. Google, Apple, and Amazon are the new Microsoft.
Is Microsoft working under the theory that (since they have other profitable areas of business, and Google basically doesn't) it will be wholly worth it if the can salt the earth under both Google and their own advertising efforts?
Or are they making the best of a bad situation by advertising the inferiority of their analytics capabilities as a privacy feature?
Or are they simply hoping that mutually applicable accusations will stick to whoever they are made against first?
And Microsoft isn't doing the same?
I'm all for informing people on what information they give to companies, and how those companies will use it. But at least don't be hypocritical about it.
Also, a huge part of the world doesn't care, as is obvious by their Facebook and Twitter activity.
I don't know why people even believe in this shit. What, you are all seriously so naive as to think Microsoft is not doing the very same thing? That's the whole fucking reason they offer a mail service, for crying out loud! There is no money in it for them at all unless they extract information that can be monetized. If you want a usable enough service, there can't be nearly enough ads there to pay for it. Google and MS are doing the same, they just use a common tactic of pretending like they are very different. Large-scale free mail hosting is a financial loss unless you mine the data. The data doesn't even necessarily need to be sold to third parties, there are other groups within Google and Microsoft that use it. Just think of how big of a language corpus it gives both companies to develop their other tools on. Imagine you're a search engine or a translation service startup. You're at a big disadvantage to both MS and Google precisely because you don't have billions of sentences of text as your reference.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
If I was an advertiser and saw the Sgroogled campaign - the message to me is that Google has a better advertiser platform.
Nearly 115,000 people signed a petition asking Google to stop going through their Gmail
So why the hell do they use Gmail? Here's a clue for them - use a proper email client.
except it isnt.. Google isnt selling you access to a persons information, they are selling you access to a target audience, the same thing MS does. There is nothing identifying about it.
See also Scroogled by Cory Doctorow (translations)
Wow, Microsoft appropriating the name of someone else's pre-existing work in a particular domain, particularly when that domain is the criticism and commentary on a near-monopolist, and the original author is one of the most vocal and prominent proponents of copyright and other IP-related reform. I think my irony meter just exploded.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
A Microsoft sponsored petition had 115,000 signatures! That's probably more people than are using Windows 8.
Of course, we should double check and make sure all of those signatures belong to actual living people, and not dead people. MS has a history of fake grass roots campaigns involving dead people. You should all listen to your international corporate overlords and be outraged at being scroogled, but ignore the fact that Microsoft reserves the right to examine all of the data on your sky drive.
It shouldn't suprise us that Microsoft products are so popular among the dead. After all, Balmer is one of the most brain-dead CEO's in the tech world. They used to be such a scrappy competitive company. Then the 1990's happened.
Google does not sell personal information to third parties. And they never have.
At worst, they will use this as a signal to match ads to users.
So, Google can scan through emails anonymously and target ads based on that. Nothing new here at all. There is no tie to the actual account when it does this, and nobody is "reading my email". If, however, I'm not OK with algorithms parsing the email, I can just stop using the free service. Simple. And pointing to a settlement where Google paid out because it allowed Canadian pharmacy ads that were against US federal law has NOTHING to do with whether or not they are looking at your email.
This is just fear mongering, much like the Scroogled campaign is to begin with. There are 425 million gmail users according to wikipedia. Having 115,000 complaints is such a small percentage of their user base that it's not really worth talking about. 0.025% Bottom line is that it's an ad-supported platform, and they provide targeted ads that are more relevant. That may be beyond the comprehension of some users and it might make them feel that somehow the whole Scroogled FUD is real, in which case they can opt to use another service.
In a free market, Google is allowed to use their customer's personal information in any way they see fit, and the magical hand of the free market will punish Google if they do something wrong. So if Google finds out by reading your Gmail that you are cheating on your partner, and they extort money from you, that is just free market capitalism at work -- nothing wrong with that. By the same token, Microsoft is allowed, by the free market, to characterize Google in any way they see fit. After all, these are big corporations. The free market dictates that they can do anything they like, and so can their customers. Everybody is free, the market is free, and in the end the world is perfect and everyone is rich and happy.
Microsoft likes to brag that 115,000 people signed the petition (if we are to believe Microsoft). They also like to brag that 3.5 million people visited the site.
So that means the only 0.3% percent of the site visitors found Microsoft's argument compelling.
Any lawyer, doctor, or otherwise professional dealing with confidential information should use a private email service. They should also advise clients to do the same. Failure of the client to do so is thier fault. And snail mail options do still exist.
Silence is a state of mime.
How is this different from a drug company approaching a doctor and saying 'Hey, I have this medication that can help people undergoing cancer treatment with their nausea.' Then the doctor, who has the personal information of his/her patients, makes targeted suggestions. Do you think the doctor recommends that medication to people with strep throat? Probably not. It's targeted. The drug company is not given any personal information.
Of course - there is a difference - the doctors are not allowed to accept money from the drug companies. The reason for that is because you want the medical advice given by your medical professionals to be unbiased and not slanted by money paid to them by drug companies, because you need to be able to trust that your doctor has your best interests at heart.
Neither Google nor Microsoft have any such relationship with their clients. People do not expect Google's advertisements or Microsoft's advertisements to be sound medical advice. The relationship is pretty transparent and I'm pretty sure everybody knows at least vaguely how those ads got there. But the same situation applies - Google is not passing personal information along to drug companies - they are merely pushing the ads out to those clients that meet certain criteria. Google's advertisers are not being given the personal information.
I use my own email server so no scroogling.
That's quite brilliant of you to never email someone with a gmail account. That must take a lot of diligence.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Google doesn't sell your info to companies. Google delivers ads to target demographics.
This is a very important distinction that many people (apparently yourself included) don't understand, and one that Microsoft is basically outright lying about.
They parse your email for keywords to determine which ad to show you, just the same way your email is parsed by a computer for a spam filter. And Microsoft does the same thing. They have contextual ads on their free email service as well.
Given that Microsoft is outright lying, they need to be called out on it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
the same thing MS does
The elephant in the room.
Kind of amazing that microsoft has had the nerve to go after Google's privacy practices, when its own regarding Bing generally arent as good. AFAIK Bing / MS Mail (whatever its called now) has historically scanned email in the same way as google, and the whole point of Bing is to datamine for advertising.
Since Google admitted they do that, Microsoft is pointing at that and saying how Google is bad for it. What Microsoft isn't telling anyone is that they are doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING (well, may not exactly, but darn near close to it), but isn't telling you they are. Thus, their results are "better" because they are sneaky about it.
Straw man. Despite MS's claims, "someone" at Google is not reading your email. If you had said: "So, if you have a physical mail, and an algorithm generates ads from the content to help support the Post Office, and it's completely anonymous to the advertisers, it would be fine?", you might have a valid argument.
And I disagree with other posters that email doesn't have an expectation of privacy, though that doesn't mean it is private, unless you have strong end-to-end encryption.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Attacking your opponent, preemptively, where you are week is a fairly common tactic in political campaigns, especially for candidates that don't have a clear positive message to sell. It associates a negative which you might be vulnerable to with your opponent in the public eye, and makes it look (at least, for people who don't spend the effort to dig for the substance, but that's most of the public) like they are just engaging in "me too" attacks if they do point out your weakness.
It is probably not even a little bit coincidental that the "Scroogled" campaign coincided with Microsoft bringing long-time political consultant/campaign manager Mark Penn onboard as an executive.
How can Bing scan personal email?
Perhaps I was not clear. Bing datamines; thats its entire purpose. MS owns Bing, and also owns Hotmail (now Outlook). Historically, Hotmail ALSO served email-relevant ads, as does yahoo and basically everyone. Google simply was the first to do so.
Perhaps Outlook does not now, but that hardly changes the gross hypocrisy of it all.
Microsoft is very grateful that you paraphrased what they actually said. You see, they actually do scan Subject headers, but not the body itself. But they don't mention that in their campaign and they're very happy that you assumed that they weren't scanning your email at all. But they are.
And Microsoft is certainly profiling you. Here's what they say:
"The extraordinary profile and behavioral targeting on Hotmail, combined with customizable advertising packages and Rich Media solutions, enable you to connect with your audience at the point of influence."
And I'd assume if you didn't want any computer (not people) scanning (not reading) your emails, I'd assume you didn't want a computer tracking your profile/search history. But that's exactly what Microsoft does.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Microsoft is very grateful that you paraphrased what they actually said. You see, they actually do scan Subject headers, but not the body itself. But they don't mention that in their campaign and they're very happy that you assumed that they weren't scanning your email at all. But they are.
Oh please, read your own links. Right there it says:
Update: According to The Verge, Microsoft denies that it scans email subject lines in order to deliver ads.
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.
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.