Surveillance by the New Microsoft Outlook App | Hacker News Reader

Surveillance by the New Microsoft Outlook App

schneier.com

65 pointsespressoshot17 comments

Link from Schneier to the original article from Proton Mail[0]:

"Some European users who download the new Outlook for Windows will encounter a modal with a troubling disclosure about how Microsoft and several hundred third parties process their data:

"The window informs users that Microsoft and those 801 third parties use their data for a number of purposes, including to:

    Store and/or access information on the user’s device

    Develop and improve products

    Personalize ads and content

    Measure ads and content

    Derive audience insights

    Obtain precise geolocation data

    Identify users through device scanning"

also you get to choose your ads layout.

[0] https://proton.me/blog/outlook-is-microsofts-new-data-collec...

There is a screenshot of this banner from a recent blog post by the Tuta team as well. It shows 813 data sharing partners... https://tuta.com/blog/outlook-shares-passwords-with-microsof...

> also you get to choose your ads layout.

Its Orwell's 1984 except that you are made to feel free here

It wants to share me with 801 partners? How disgusting.

Discussed at the time (2024-1-11): <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38953618>

A link to the commentary asks me to share my data with their 165 partners. I find it ironic.

> A link to the commentary asks me to share my data with their 165 partners. I find it ironic.

I guess this is the issue here. For some, data collection, is just _ironic_. /s

[dupe]

Actual article from January

Outlook is Microsoft's new data collection service

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38953618

Outlook is available as a PWA, in case anyone hasn't noticed. You absolutely do not need to be installing the desktop app for most use cases.

Just don't try and use it with Edge - on my work Ubuntu laptop, the PWA is a steaming pile - locks up, crashes, eats all the CPU - I gave up and just have it as a pinned tab now.

I'm not sure the PWA would bring any privacy advantage?

Potentially limiting what the app has access to. A "real" app can see your clipboard, files on your disk, and the content of your browser profile (technically a subset of "files" but worth calling out on its own). A web app can "only" see your interactions with the web app and data in it (which in this case includes all your email, so...).

I see the point concerning the limitations of what a PWA can do, but as here it's a question on snooping on emails... it probably wouldn't make any difference on that matter.

The new outlook is literally that PWA.

Microsoft is completely blacklisted for me since a few years, and they keep reinforcing my decision. Few companies are so blatantly user-hostile.

On my work laptop, I’m a very happy Microsoft user. I’m assuming all shitty Microsoft behavior is turned off via policies, and even if not, it’s only my work mail and data. The apps work very well, Copilot is nice, the software even looks good. No complaints.

On my personal laptop where I cannot get enterprise licenses or preferential treatment, I’m not touching MS stuff even with a loooong stick.

As an enterprise Microsoft customer, you are treated to the same group policies as everyone else, with one difference that you can reduce OS telemetry collection to “Basic”.

There is no way to go radio silent without ring-fencing the OS within the network.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com