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Comment by cjk2 | Hacker News Reader

Why the hell aren't the EU and the FTC suing the shit out of them for bundling, telemetry, lock in, gouging, shitty defaults?

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Because people just complain on the internet and don't report these things. The FTC works off of reported incidents. File a report:

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

People are reporting this, but usually via microsoft support pages, so in the end nobody really cares.

Sadly I think the enthusiasm with which the market embraced this behaviour in mobile, console and IoT makes it legally difficult for Microsoft to be punished.

How can you penalise Microsoft for pushing OneDrive by default but not penalise Apple for iCloud? Should multiple backup providers be suggested at startup for economic fairness? Or should backups be disabled by default (potentially annoying consumers of mobile devices)?

Not saying it’s impossible for a skilled regulator to build a PC specific theory of harm but it’s hard. Potentially might need entirely new legislation.

iCloud Drive, and actually the entire iCloud ecosystem is opt-in

Yes, but the question is how they implemented it. Are there dark patterns, is it all-or-nothing, etc.?

Also, with iCloud being at the heart of Apple's ecosystem, a simple bug may very well cause accidental sharing of sensitive data. Even if that never happens, it does not make me sleep better.

Apple’s apps make it pretty clear when something is local and when something is in iCloud. Even for iCloud users, it’s usually an explicit choice per file or object. Photos is the notable exception.

I don't want to worry about exceptions.

I’m pretty sure there’s also a very-much-not-fine-print notice about iCloud Photos when you set up a device, and you can easily turn iCloud Photos off. The only part missing is that you can’t enable iCloud Photos but choose, per photo, whether to sync the photo.

It also doesn’t nag if you decide not to use it.

It does - there’s a message with a red dot badging in your settings that you can’t dismiss. Clicking it takes you to a nag message to log into iCloud. Still, nowhere near the blatantly insecure and anticompetitive dark patterns that Microsoft uses

IMO While Apple are pushing iCloud harder than they really should be allowed to, but it's nowhere near as bad as what Microsoft are doing. With Apple there's a simple opt-out in the setup wizard, and if you opt-out you stay opted-out (and are only prompted to opt-in once a year with the major OS update).

On a new device iCloud is not opt-out. Yesterday I installed a new iPad and had to go to iCloud settings and turn off syncing for some 30 services. Quite annoying.

However, you can (or least could last time I setup an iOS device) choose not to sign into iCloud in the first place in the setup UI. Which requires knowing a key combination and then running a command in a terminal on windows.

I wish I could use parts of iCloud without all the crap that entails. But at least I can choose not to use it all.

I set up 3 new Mac laptops in the last month.

All of them had an option to skip iCloud login during setup.

Of course, you have to log in to iCloud to use the app store to get OS updates. Since I'm not an Apple user, I don't know if there are offline options available.

It is luckily possible to sign in for the App Store and OS updates without enabling things like backups or syncing.

It seems completely illegal for MS to do that on EU computers, esp. with Schrems (but probably even completely illegal with just GDPR)

But it will take month to prepare a case and get it to the right courts. Maybe years.

How will goverments surveil their citizens without these companies?

"It looks like you're considering investigating Microsoft! I've loaded 500 free crystals into Candy Forgecraft Extreme and launched it for you! Just play one level..."

I have no idea why the EU isn't going after Microsoft with a heavy club for all the crap they're pulling lately.

> I have no idea why the EU isn't going after Microsoft with a heavy club for all the crap they're pulling lately.

Did someone get a O365 license reduction or a nice dinner out. MS rep used to take me out to dinner in the 90s to get us to use NT+Visual Basic. Free dinner with asshats - worth it. We used Solaris in the end and Sun only gave us hats.

The last time, they built a new physical (lol) office and convinced an entire state to abandon their custom Linux setup and switch back to Office 365. Looking at you Bavaria...

Holtstein is trying the same now. They just switched to Linux.

I suspect that is coming. At least MS isn't preventing you from running any third party stuff you want to run.

Great question.

I think the 90's Antitrust battle was long and painful for everyone, and the hope was that the lessons from the fallout of it from it would carry forward in OS design.

But the staff has turned over and nobody remembers it anymore, so here we go again. (see also: The rise of Fascism worldwide as WW2 veterans die off)

That said, a Web Browser was/is a disproportionately significant application for the OS, where preferential defaults and bundling raise anti-trust concerns. Not so with a cloud backup option. TBH, Apple has been/remains equally annoying with iCloud integration/upsells on both OSX and iOS. And nobody cares.

Microsoft bundle edge still and it can't be removed, even in windows 11 LTSC. Constant nagging if you don't accept O365/OneDrive unless you eviscerate the machine thoroughly or use a cracked LTSC build.

As for Apple, no. Literally I get asked once about stuff and then never again.

I've been wondering this too. The stuff Microsoft has been pulling for the last decade is just ripe for them to go after, yet all you hear is crickets.

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