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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
ALL email is just POSTCARDS that anybody in the middle can read plainly. I wouldn't be surprised if the big ISPs were all doing it too. After all, it's not "private" until it passes through their servers into your assigned mailbox.
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.
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!
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.