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Comment by D895n9o33436N42 | Hacker News Reader

> Also how is outlook any better?

Google: our business is ads, and you’re the product. Put more of your data into Gmail so that we can show you more ads and do a million other things that benefit us.

Microsoft: our business is software and services and hardware and a bunch of other stuff you can pay us money for. E-mail service is the product, and you’re the customer.

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Literally Microsoft:

"""Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to: [etc and so forth]; Advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising, and presenting you with relevant offers."""

Then why are there ads in my Windows 10 OS? Why the aggressive data sponging behavior?

Microsoft is a lot better than Google, but I still feel like I am their product when I use their OS.

It's much more insidious at the operating system level. It's easier to change email providers than your entire operating system. I'm shocked there isn't a louder outcry over Microsoft's intrusions this way into Windows.

That's the old Microsoft. As of a few years ago, it has started to shift in the direction of Google too.

If Microsoft doesn’t show you ads why is “Upgrade to ad-free Premium” a thing? You can turn off ads by buying g suite (albeit its more expensive) or just use adblock of some kind.

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