Hacker News Reader

Comment by varispeed | Hacker News Reader

So Microsoft can see your private repositories, your documents if you use Office, your personal files (one drive), your company communication (teams), now they will be able to listen what you talk about. Where is this going? Should we trust this company so much? I think companies like this should be split up.

View on HN

Years ago, deep in the fine-print of the Skype ToU, was buried a clause in which anything you discussed via Skype granted to MS a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, etc. license to anything mentioned. Is that still there? (Haven't used Skype in many a long year, myself.) I always wondered why that clause didn't render Skype unusable for any business or prospective business conversation.

I find that very hard to believe.

No, that is standard language that gives a website the right to store and display content you post to it (e.g., to show your avatar on a profile page or show forum posts or chats.) Many websites use it; see this search for examples: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22any%20time%20you%20...

This is the text from Skype’s terms: “Notwithstanding any rights or obligations governed by the Additional Terms (as defined below) if, at any time you choose to upload or post User Submissions to the Skype Websites or through the Software (excluding Reports and excluding the content of your communications) you automatically grant Skype a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual, sub-licensable and transferable license of all rights to use, edit, modify, include, incorporate, adapt, record, publicly perform, display, transmit and reproduce the User Submissions including, without limitation, all trade marks associated therewith, in connection with the Skype Websites and Skype’s Software and Products including for the purpose of promoting or redistributing part or all of the Skype Websites and/or the Software or Products, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised. You also hereby grant each user of the Skype Website and/or Skype’s Software or Products a non-exclusive license to access your User Submission through the Skype Website and/or Software or Products and to use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, perform and transmit such User Submissions solely as permitted through the functionality of the Skype Websites and/or Software or Products and pursuant to these Terms of Use. In addition, you waive any so-called “moral rights” in and to the User Submissions, to the extent permitted by applicable law.”

So, those are both necessary terms due to the US asinine idea that copying data within a system is covered by copyrights, and general enough terms that allow MS to do anything they want with any content you send through Skype.

I don't see how the GP is incorrect. But I also don't see how MS could improve anything here.

I'm sure Microsoft could survive a court challenge. That is not the same as saying getting agreement on this has no value to them.

The user was incorrect because they said, "anything you discussed via Skype granted to MS a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, etc. license to anything mentioned" in the context of their parent comment that said, "now they will be able to listen what you talk about. Where is this going?" These terms have nothing to do with listening to your conversations and they don't grant any rights to them.

That's not to say Microsoft won't ask for such licensing in the future.

There was 2 Skypes. Skype and Skype for business.

I can believe this ToU for the former.

It’s there for OneDrive still.

And the worst part, the deal is likely going to be approved (or they would not be announcing it). There's just _no way in hell_ the current political landscape allows "splitting up" a company when it is still allowing to grow it even further.

They also want a piece of Discord, so that's most private group conversations along with the voice chats.

Well, they have been doing that for ages already, remember they hold a monopoly on the personal computer operating system software. Of course now it isn't as easy as it used to be as they couldn't just force IE and Bing into everybody's phone, but they're working on it.

I agree, not that different from Google either.

Or Amazon

Well amazon can't be neither compared in this, is by far way more evil. At least Google and MS keep some key products open source, so most of them can be checked and re-packaged if there are privacy concerns.

One difference I've found between MS and Google: MS is much more annoying about everything they do. (Hear me out)

I'd be surprised if there is any real difference in how either company respects your privacy (neither does). But for the most part, google seems to do its thing in the background and leave you alone. Microsoft is constantly popping things up asking you to rate this or that, flinging things you didn't ask for onto your screen, basically the spirit of clippy reborn into modern data collection practices. If I'm going to have my information exploited no matter what I do, I'd rather at least have it happen unobtrusively.

(To be fair, this is just my perception. I was in a g-suite shop for three years and now onto office 365 and I feel like it bothers me about stuff way more often the g-suite ever did)

Microsoft is annoying while Google is creepy. I’m annoyed by the dark pattern designs used by Microsoft, but Google will remember things that you about yourself that you didn’t at moments when you didn’t ask for help. It’s creepy because you’d rather not know that a company has that amount of data on your life.

But Microsoft won't see as much scrutiny as any other tech giant because they are so deeply ingrained in the government's world.

And when they are scrutinized, that most probably puts the scrutinizers themselves in a difficult position.

The report in which the organization explains why Microsofts products are privacy invading, monopolized or otherwise breaching some law or regulation, that report itself is most probably written on those Microsoft products.

I'm just curious, do you and the people who agree with you think that Apple should also be split up?

I personally am more Microsoft friendly, simply for the reason that they always had and have an open platform to everyone.

I'm honestly interested in people's experiences and views on this topic.

An open platform to everyone...

Apparently you missed a few decades of their development of the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactics.

As well as their tendency to throw exorbitant licensing conditions on nearly everything they sold.

As well as their repeated backdoor deals and maneuvers to cause vendor lock in across the entire PC market.

They did not always have an open platform. Windows Phone was was a Apple style walled garden and Windows 8 did not allow applications outside the windows store to use the "modern" user interface.

The only reason Microsoft is trending back to "open" is they failed when they imitated Apple.

Nuance is text to speech in hospitals, government, call centers etc.. This is a market access play.

Buy the stock and enjoy the ride.

So you've seen the move "The Circle"? Complete transparency for everyone then?

Personally I think that given current policies an "Umbrella Corp" that does everything is unavoidable. The question is, will I be able to profit through it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com