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France: Windows 10 Collects 'Excessive Personal Data', Issues Microsoft With Formal Warning (betanews.com)
France's National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) has ordered Microsoft to "stop collecting excessive data and tracking browsing by users without consent," adding that Microsoft must comply with the French Data Protection Act within next three months. BetaNews reports: In addition to this, the chair of CNIL has notified Microsoft that it needs to take "satisfactory measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of user data." The notice comes after numerous complaints about Windows 10, and a series of investigations by French authorities which revealed a number of failings on Microsoft's part. Microsoft is accused of not only gathering excessive data about users, but also irrelevant data. The CNIL points to Windows 10's telemetry service which gathers information about the apps users have installed and how long each is used for. The complaint is that "these data are not necessary for the operation of the service."
Let the Micro$haft bitchfest commence.
france will become silent and declare ms is a strategic partner in fighting terrorism. Until then, it intrudes privacy.
Anyway, everybody who wants to protect their data should use linux.
It's perfectly fine that Microsoft spies on you because Windows 10 is free! Unlike evil GOOGLE, who reads your email to find people who do things they don't like!
Also remember that quebec is a french speaking part of Canada, meaning that it may become independent from the Canadian oppressor as well.
The largest issue here is creating the advertising ID and sending it over seas without user consent. This is pretty easy to comply with though, given it can all be done with a patch/UI modification.
Most likely this will result in nothing, but I'm really, really hopeful that more countries will band together with France on this and hit Microsoft with some considerable sanctions, and switch off of Windows.
At the very least, this is something I can show to aggravating Microsoft fans/shills who are still in complete denial about the Orwellian nature of Windows 10.
It's about time Microsoft were forced to remove their spyware. Once again Europe seems the only place where there's even a pretence of respecting an individuals rights.
Vive La France !
Could Microsoft make a special version of Windows 10 to comply with French or even EU regulators?
What happens in Europe will stay in Europe. When Europe ruled that Microsoft bundled their media player and whatnot illegally, Microsoft released Windows N, which was only available in Europe (and MSDN subscribers if you wanna get picky). The rest of the world still got the regular version.
If France/Europe/whatever is successful with this, I imagine Microsoft will simply do the same thing again.
apps users have installed and how long each is used for... is not irrelevant at all.
This is why, despite the apparent bloat, all applications should be completely self contained (portable, sandboxed, kinda) in their own folders (statically linked). So when you toss the folder, all traces of the app are gone with it. The old Macs were sort of like that. But with Microsoft, and Linux to an extent, they take a shotgun to your drive and then fill in the holes, splattering the application all over the place. It's kind of incestuous the way everything mixes up together. Apps that you don't even know about, running in the background cause many mysterious crashes. Sending the black box info to Microsoft has become necessary.
I just run a personalized live system now. Boots factory fresh every time.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Apple Mail: using IMAP to my mail servers, pings 3 different apple servers while processing any new incoming email. NOWHERE in the chain does Apple need to be involved. Use any push service and they all much use Apple's control panel, and they all ping Apple servers right alongside whatever service you're using. Apple's official reason: "Ensure product is up to date and to cross reference any known security issues." That could just be done via a single update, say daily, completely unrelated to my personal accounts.
They're all doing it and all in some sort of shitty dog race to see who can be the biggest asshole of the lot.
Yeah much more worried about what that peeping tom google does with my data.
may become independent
Quebexit..
Promises promises...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
But ok, I do have a comment: how come nobody in the EU is looking into the criminal activities of how Microsoft shoved Windows 10 down people's throats?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I've been waiting for the Europeans to put some smackdown on M$. Where's the class-action lawsuits as well?!
Time to break out the guillotine for Microsoft execs!
France, if you manage to bring Microsoft to heel, I promise, no more 'surrender' jokes!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission all about being on its hands and knees, blowing Microsoft. The concerns, security, and well-being of American. citizens just doesn't matter to them.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Learned about this from an older Slashdot post. Worth checking out... https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/
No easy way for me to test it, but it seems to cover (hopefully) all the bases.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All your data belongs to us - Microsoft.
That's funny, because I am sure the Europeans are "LOLing" at the U.S.A.
I bet they would change their mind very quickly.
And France gives you a blue screen with a flag if you leave France's internet. It warns you to be safe.
Total fag shit.
Google *REQUIRES* an account with an Android phone. That android phone is not free. It has an advertiser ID with it, that id is sent even if you reject their personalized ads. They never list the data they collect connected to that ID, yet the ID is easy to link to your identity. They do have an effective monopoly on smartphones.
i.e. Microsoft is shit, but Google is far far shitter.
GP complained about them reading words in the emails of their customers, but FFS they track location, if you turn off 'history' they still get the tracking info. That is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg with Google.
Android needs to be tackled too. It's a piece of surveillance crap from Google.
Smoke screen alert here. What the commission is telling Microsoft is not that they have a problem with their humongous private data collection, but with the fact that M$ won't share that data with the French/Euro government.
...MS should pull *ALL* microsoft licenses in France and tell them to fuck off.
And then when people don't comply, sue them in French courts.
Didn't french police, and other entities start switching from Windows to Linux back in 2013? I remember looking back at this article:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/french-police-move-from-windows-to-ubuntu-linux/
fuck you france, use a proper os like linux or osx...
You care so much you need to tell us about it.
Watch this Heartland Institute video