Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google. | Hacker News Reader

Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

scroogled.com

133 pointsmarpi172 comments

This is embarassingly sloppy, but I agree with the kernel of the message.

Microsoft says Google "goes through" your email to target ads, whereas outlook.com only "scans" your email for spam filtering. This is a valid contrast, destroyed by the bullshit phrasing.

The important difference for me is that spam filter criteria are common to 99% of all recipients. My personal set (if google even has personal blacklists) is not that interesting.

Valuable advertising keywords are much more personal, and a) can be used by the advertiser, along with other metadata, to glue together a profile about me that is quite personal (and unreviewable, unfixable, probably incorrect in annoying ways), and b) are almost certainly retained by Google in my ad-profile that is then used elsewhere on their properties...maybe I'm naive, but I assume they do not let email keywords cross pollinate into Adsense on the wider Internet...

Of course, I don't trust either one of them. The notion of storing my mail spool on anyone else's servers is unfathomably derelict to me. I recognize that I'm in the minority here.

The notion of storing my mail spool on anyone else's servers is unfathomably derelict to me. I recognize that I'm in the minority here.

I'm in the same minority.

If you login to Outlook.com (which is extremely slow btw), you'll also find the following settings page available from the bottom right cog icon: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/mydata/UserInterests

Under 'My Data' it stores Bing Searches and takes guesses as to your 'Interests'. How does it do that exactly? Operationally, how different is Outlook.com a.k.a Hotmail, compared to Google? Both are free, and nothing is for free in this world. So, Microsoft also have an angle.

Digging further you'll find information on Microsoft Advertising, which is something I don't remember actively opting in to, but I appear to be registered for: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/MyChoices/MSAdvertising

It states, and I quote:

> About Microsoft Advertising

> With the Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard (beta), you can choose not to receive personalized ads on websites that use the Microsoft Advertising Platform by not allowing Microsoft Advertising to use your information.

> Information used by Microsoft Advertising

> The Microsoft Advertising Platform customizes personalized ads based on different types of information, including but not limited to:

> Bing searches

> Interests

> Profile

> What does it mean not to allow Microsoft Advertising to use your information?

> Well, first, it doesn't mean you will stop getting ads or see fewer ads; but, it does mean that the ads you get won't be personalized anymore by Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft will continue to collect information for other uses, such as delivering content that is personalized for you; for example, the news articles displayed on MSN and the results you get when you search for software updates.

I guess, at least I can opt-out. Google doesn't allow me to opt-out of their creepiness. Saying that though, even though GMail creeps me out, but I'm addicted to the user interface.

Logging in to Gmail is slower than Outlook in my experience, it even got a loading bar. I got IE9 right now so I can't test it (I'm not at my own pc), but this is how it feels to me.

You may have a point. I use Chrome predominantly. It might well be that Google optimize GMail for Chrome and Microsoft optimize Hotmail/Outlook.com for IE.

"You can also opt-out of getting personalized ads from advertising companies other than Microsoft, on the Consumer Choice page.":

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

Personalized ads is not an issue.

Excessive and invasive email scanning and analysis is.

It's really a bait-n-switch technique. They are substituting a bigger and more important issue with something tactile but of a superficial value. "Your tumor hurts? We have a Tylenol for that."

"Creepiness"? Are you a child?

You seem to comprehend how Google runs its business and pays for its services. Isn't it incredibly ludicrous to call it creepy?

Creepiness is the term used by Google (Eric Schmidt) and repeated by Microsoft in the linked website.

Here's the source:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/animation...

No, reading personal email to deliver advertisements is creepy. It's better than it used to be but we all remember seeing things like casket advertisements when an email mentioned dead code, etc etc.

It's creepy, and I would gladly pay google monthly to prevent them from abusing my privacy.

But Google doesn't want money from me, it wants to abuse my privacy. That's far more profitable.

It's unfortunate but too many services point to my gmail for me to be able to switch.

Let's define what "read" means in this context. A computer program, most likely a C++ binary, takes the string of your emails, splits on U+0020 and sends the resulting array through a series of algorithms like Levenshtein distance to match to its database of ads.

Text mining has come a long way since 1985, so I don't think that's how it's done (in fact I know it's not done that way), but I guess what you mean is that no human ever looks at the data. That's possible, but not reassuring.

Many of the shady purposes this data could be misused for don't require a human to ever read it. Say, one day, that C++ binary computes a score that indicates how reliable, credit worthy, dangerous, healthy, honest or skilled you are.

Say another C++ binary makes a decision that influences your life based on such a score. A decision on health insurance, banking, job applications, security matters, etc. Is that better, just because no human ever looked at the data and giggled because you searched for some embarrassing disease?

But what business sense does it make for Google to sell the data directly? You can only sell data once; targeted advertising can be sold over and over again.

It could make business sense for someone like Google or LinkedIn or Facebook to provide a service to employers to score job applicants in terms of loyalty, skill, reliability, security risk or whatever. It could make business sense for Google to provide credit risk scoring to banks or lifestyle/health related scoring to health insurance companies. They would not have sell our personal data to do that. They would just compute scores.

Granted it would not make business sense for Google to do that right now. But the future might look very differently. What about a desperate future Google that has been deprived of ad income by regulation happy governments or threatened by anti-trust legislation? What about a Google disrupted and superseded by some other new and cool company, lead by someone put in place by activist investors to monetize its assets?

Things change, but our ability to react to such changes is very limited when it comes to taking back information that has been put out there.

No, but that's a separate problem from algorithmic ads. When Google shares personal data and not merely statistics about personal data I'll being doing the call-to-arms along side you. What Microsoft wants you to think, however, is that there is an office full of people some where reading your emails and picking ads that they think you might respond to.

Some would say that sharing a computed score that claims to say something about me is not sharing my personal data. But I don't even think that Google would compute and sell such a score at this point in time. I trust them to some degree, maybe even a bit more than I trust others.

What I'm concerned about is that data that allows such a score to be computed is out there and I have no way to control it or take it back. Google could change and start to interpret their privacy policy slightly differently. The data could be stolen or accessed by governments. Many things could happen that are outside of my control.

But I agree that Microsoft may try to insinuate something different from what I'm concerend about.

> It's creepy, and I would gladly pay google monthly to prevent them from abusing my privacy.

OK..... how about $5/mo for Google Apps for business? They say ads can be disabled.

> It's unfortunate but too many services point to my gmail for me to be able to switch.

One at a time. In a few weeks or months, you'll be done. The point isn't to redirect all email away from Gmail, but to starve it for usable content.

You can check multiple mailboxes for as long a transition period as you need. Maybe in perpetuity.

Right here https://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=...

So, make a brand new email address and abandon my @gmail account?

If I was willing to do that: I'd just leave Gmail for a superior service!

Superior in what way? No one has better spam blocking.

I think this is a sign of Microsoft's desperation to stay relevant.

Most of the Surface reviews have spoken poorly about the device. Windows RT hasn't been well received. They've tried to revamp their entire image -- with new hardware, software, and extensive marketing -- with limited success. "Look at how cool our product is" hasn't worked for them, so they're resorting to "look at how terrible their product is." You can tell they've been trying incredibly hard to stay fresh, but nothing has really taken off for them. I've yet to see a Surface in the wild.

"Most of the Surface reviews have spoken poorly about the device."

What reviews have you been reading?

Edit: Regarding the actual topic, this is just "normal" PR it's a way to scare people into swapping from gmail to outlook.com unfortunately it works better than many might think. Microsoft aren't the only ones doing PR like this it's a lot more common than you might think.

I think PR like this _can_ be good for two reasons: raise awareness of the issue that Google scans your e-mails and make people aware that there are other worthy alternatives to gmail.

I noticed that in one of the "cases" listed on the page by Microsoft one e-mail is about a credit card debt where someone might have overused their credit limit and might be in trouble. The ads that pop up from this is such ads giving advice on how to get new loans to cover the credit card debt which is really not a nice way of helping someone that is already in trouble.

I think that Microsoft could (and maybe should) have less aggressive PR about competitors and just focus on the good parts about outlook.com.

Anyways, I'm probably biased because I love Microsoft and whatever they do and I own all their awesome devices.

All of the original Surface reviews were negative. The Surface Pro reviews seem to be mostly positive.

"All of the original Surface reviews were negative"

No they're not? Then you haven't read ALL of them, mine weren't negative and most of the ones I read weren't negative either.

I don't think you want to remember the positive ones, but there are a lot of them.

I'm referring to the ones I saw on the HN front page, not some kind of logical for-all statement. And it's true, I didn't go digging around for other points of view, but I read three or four and they all seemed to say the same thing: an interesting idea with inadequate execution. They were negative in the "promising idea but don't buy this until they get these issues worked out" sense, not in the "what a stupid idea, burn them at the stake" sense. Now, if you want to interpret that as a positive review, be my guest. The reviews I've seen (one or two that made it to the front page) about the Surface Pro seem to be saying "hey, they got the issues worked out" or rather "the issues with Surface and RT don't exist with the Surface Pro" which turns a negative review into a positive one.

Well the good ones that made it to the front page were down voted off with in hours so maybe you should use other sources. I don't have any idea how the surface is but unfortunately hacker news might not be the best place for balanced information.

How much time do I have in a day, that I need to go hunting down unbiased information on an expensive toy I have no reason to buy? How many tablets or laptops do you think I need?

Way to completely change the point of the discussion.

Even if the reviews are positive, I've spoken to many people about the Surface (techies and not) and very few spoke well of Windows 8/Surface.

I have both iPad and Surface and I've had the iPad for years. I've asked my girlfriend if she wants an iPad and she told me that she didn't because she didn't really find a use case for it.

When I brought home the Surface she said: "Wow, this I can use . Get me one!".

I don't really know why but she likes it and everyone that I've show Surface to and that have tried it out do infact like it, a lot.

That's some pretty anecdotal evidence. Just as anecdotally, I have heard to the contrary.

How many had a Surface? I know lots of people who pan the Surface, but don't actually own one.

That's a good point. Almost none actually owned one. But public perception is often what decides if a product is successful.

I agree with you about microsoft.

But what I did not know is that google shopping was not on my side. I used that many times to find better prices, but it turns out the results are completely manipulated. You will find those who paid more in an ad auction, not really the best prices. In fact, they restrict price comparison for just a list of websites and are passing parameters about the click to that website, which obviously is an active actor in this process, read: it paid.

I feel betrayed by google, really.

You point about desperation to stay relevant may be correct, but I don't think this has anything to do with the surface reviews.

This campaign launched last year before the poor surface reviews came out. http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-attacks-google-with-sc...

> Most of the Surface reviews have spoken poorly about the device

Ohh so this is what happens when all the pro Microsoft news gets flagged off from the frontpage. That aside, the Surface reviews have been fairly mixed, from biased journalist on both sides to Jeff Atwood seems to either hate it or love it. I like to think of it as a niche product (that is still in beta) than a competition to Ipad or the Ultrabooks.

>so they're resorting to "look at how terrible their product is."

I'll presume you must have felt the same way about Apple's I'm a Mac/I'm a PC series of ads? Since all they really did was try to paint a picture of how terrible PCs were, and since Windows is the dominant PC OS, how terrible Windows was.

I felt that way about the ads. The idea that Macs were immune to virus infection was laughable.

Until very recently (2010, maybe?) there was virtually no Mac malware in the wild.

Spot the fallacy:

  X doesn't exist for Y, therefore Y is immune to X.

I think the only goal is to show more advertisements, especially shopping advertisements. It's nice having more than one big company for search/webmail/etc.

It's unfortunate that the marketing folks at Microsoft are looking to take this stance to unbelievable levels. I would rather see relevant ads than irrelevant ads.

I used to work at Microsoft. I heard second hand that some exec (I believe they said it was Ballmer) in the last couple of years made the decision that Microsoft would make privacy a competitive differentiator. This sounds great on the surface, but it has lead to seriously unfortunate behavior.

For example, I worked on one of the first server manageability products that was completely hosted on the web. I was really excited to apply what I was learning from HN and the Lean Startup movement to a real online product and not boxed software. Then reality sunk in when we wanted to implement some very common features like A/B testing, surveys, email open rate tracking, exposure control, et al. Our legal and privacy teams were highly reluctant to allow us to do these because it could violate Microsoft's stance on privacy.

Some of the most memorable arguments were:

* "A/B testing and exposure control are not acceptable for our paying customers. Every customer must see the exact same version of the software at the same time." [Would you rather have a bad feature affect 100% of customers or 1% of customers?]

* "Google is getting a lot of bad press for all of the data Chrome sends to Google so we should minimize the amount of data captured and stored from this product." [I heard this in an official privacy training the same day that Chrome overtook IE in market share. Also, my product was specifically meant to capture lots of data about servers and analyze it for potential problems.]

* "We understand that these practices may be common place at [name any internet company here, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Bingo Card Creator], but we are not them. You must find a precedent that is set inside Microsoft before we can proceed."

I hope that Microsoft does succeed in making privacy a competitive differentiator, but I feel they lack tact and common sense in many cases.

Even since when Microsoft was good at common sense?

Microsoft is good in getting sales, not common sense.

As you said, privacy to them is a strategy, not something that is really important or part of the company culture.

It's unfortunate that privacy isn't what the market cares about. I didn't know MS has this sort of policy, but it makes me tons happier with using their services.

I hope that Microsoft does succeed in making privacy a competitive differentiator, but I feel they lack tact and common sense in many cases..

There is no love lost between them, and IMO Microsoft will get some traction because Google is desperate to increase revenue and keep their PE at over 20.

Their shopping is 100% ads and probably 90% of most transactional query pages are ads. Search for a commercial item and you are greeted by so many that "unbiased" search is drowned out. Google has ruined their product in search of short term profit thanks to Larry Page.

A sincere curiosity:

why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ?

What kind of bias you expect exactly ? Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed?

why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ?

Ask a Googler or Larry Page, why did they do that?

Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed?

It's a lot more than showing a few ads next to search, it's almost all ads. Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers. I do not trust them at all, their revenue keeps increasing with each change

> Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers

What do you mean? I wonder if we are talking about the same search engine. For which queries? Can you please provide some data and examples and be constructive.

Of course if you search for "buy an ipad" I expected you to get web pages of people selling that thing, some of them will be ads, interesting...

Just to compare I searched for "insects in pleistocene", and guess what, no ads, zero, no sites from "advertisers" too. Ah, well there is an entry from google books, in 5th position, crap, I certainly didn't want to know that somebody wrote a book about that...

Btw, getting search results containing sites of people selling stuff (I guess that's what you mean by "advertisers in the unbiased results) is a proof that the search is unbiased.

Any kind of open and free search engine will give business the possibility to write sites that contain keywords that will eventually get to the search results and piss you off because "the internet is filled with crappy advertisement".

What are you criticizing ? The current search engine monopolist or "the capitalistic system" ?

This article is about a borderline situation where the process of automatic scanning of your personal conversations is used to achieve a goal where you are the party that benefits the less.

Compare this with antspam scanning, which also has to analyze text of all your email, including all the training that you put in the system by actually reporting spam, or removing it from the spam folder.

You are grateful that somebody is filtering your spam. Of course the company offering the service also benefits from you, since it receives more conversions if it has an useful service which people love. But all in all, you have the feeling that it's you who benefit the most out of the deal, so have a machine parsing your email for that purpose doesn't bother you.

Wow you got me, you are so smart. Google has no ads for those words so they put no ads. Proof that they are fair and unbiased.

Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see

You are taking for granted that when you don't search for something you don't get ads. But that's something that's very specific about standard that was set by google with its non intrusive ads.

Most of the other commercial sites, including search engines, were filled with blinking banners trying to sell you anything, even if you just searched for boring entomology.

(The same pattern is repeating with ads in mobile aps btw)

Watching TV you are bombarded with ads you don't care about, consuming your time and infiltrating into your mind. How can this possibly compare with "80% OFF Hotels" message appearing when you are indeed searching for hotels. How can this fuck your brain? Most of anti-ad ideology comes from that aspect of ads, which cannot be applied blindly in this context.

I rarely notice search engine ads, unless what I'm looking is really something I'm expecting somebody to advertise and I'm actually searching for that thing! (you named hotels....) Why not?

Now please tell me what exactly is broken with this way of advertising. What damage does it cause? I'm all ears but please articulate your concerns and give examples.

What I want is that access to information is unbiased. I want that people around the world, no matter what is their income can know about stuff, have access to scientific education, and stuff like that, and this is basically how things are. Yes it works.

I've met a guy from remote african viallages, who self learned to be great developers (I mean great, not good). The knowledge wasn't blocked. There were no companies able to pay google to show only forums behind paywalls (like experts-exchange) basically cutting off people which not only don't have money but have no practical way to obtain credit card. And I'm sure that many companies would love to be able to do that! It would be great for them; just provide a site which offers some paywalled content and pay the search company to provide only links to them whenever this keywords come (and prune the normal results). Now, that would be search bias! I never saw anything like this with google or bing. Please point me to an example and I'll change my mind.

> Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see

What do you think would end up in the search results when you search for hotels?

You will find the same old crap of booking aggregators and resellers and cheap offers whatever. That's because the content is what it is. Companies would do nasty tricks to end up higher in that free-open search engine, exploiting fake content (I mean, there is already plenty of that stuff already, so I guess you know what I mean).

Is that what bothers you? Or the list of ads in the rights side? Are we talking about the same thing? Search bias = bias in the search result, not the ads side bar, right?

standard that was set by google with its non intrusive ads.

The content is non-intrusive, ads are everywhere.

Google is supposed to be neutral, not force sites to advertise for traffic. In case you didn't know, aggregators like Expedia often have the lowest price. Not the 745223587 ads you see per page, and especially not Google travel.

Aggressive, negative advertising is the violence of the marketing world, and as Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

I don't have any problem with aggressive advertising if it's done well, creatively, thoughtfully, intelligently. This is none of those things. Creativity usually precludes aggressive negativity (not always, but usually).

I find the expectation that anyone would 'sign' such a ham fisted attempt at a populist petition, one clearly designed by a creativity starved agency to be offensive to all sentient beings online.

I kinda liked old content at scroogled.com (now available at http://www.scroogled.com/Shopping/ -- see archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20121201162336/http://www.scroogl... ) because it told me something I didn't know, that the Froogle service had become a set of paid product listings.

(I didn't know they were paid listings.)

This new message I don't find interesting because it tells me something I already know (Google reads all my Gmail mail).

Microsoft has trotted their old friend "Get The Facts" out again! Back in the 2000s, they ran a very long anti-Linux campaign under the "Get The Facts" banner. Under this program they paid for many dubious "Total Cost of Ownership" studies, all of which found that Microsoft products were cheaper than those based on Linux.

It was a PR disaster for Microsoft as far as the geek community was concerned and they eventually pulled the plug. I can't believe anybody in Redmond actually gave the green light to bring this slogan back. This type of aggression just makes MS look like smug pricks.

This is probably going to be a bit more effective, email is bit less "geek" centric and far more mainstream. This type of PR/Shit talk looks more like a political campaign, so I imagine it will be very effective in the consumer market.

I think most people don't give a flying frak about Google "reading" their emails.

The only people it could be effective again are the ones spending time on HN, /., etc. who value their privacy.

Heck, I'm using Google and Google Docs for nearly everything and I don't give a crap about their tiny text ads related to what I write in my emails.

Why should Google be exempt from criticism? I think its good that a big company like Microsoft is making this kind of privacy an issue.

What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.

Offhand, I can't think of anything that algorithmic spam removal can do to compromise my privacy. I don't have to be careful around spam removal.

Targeted ads, on the other hand, can provide a lot of information to the advertiser if I respond to the ad. If targeted advertising is showing up in my email, I have to make sure that I do not respond to the ads. Essentially, a targeted ad is a little privacy land mine that I can easily step on if I don't keep my guard up.

In an odd twist, providing more information to the advertiser could also be doing you a service. The more information the advertisers have, the more targeted the ads, and thus a higher CPC. The increased revenue for Google can mean either more money for products for you (perpetuating the products->ads->products cycle) or the ability for them to show fewer ads.

I've never accidentally clicked on an ad, I think they're pretty out of the way in that regard. If that's what worries you, sure. Otherwise, the fact that you want to respond to the ad can provide a lot of information to the advertiser. If you're worried about that, just don't respond.

Or if you are really interested in the product, just search for it again in incognito window, so that they cannot possibly relate the two campaigns (assuming you are worried the advertizer had a way to tell that the campaign has been clicked through a gmail ad, which afaik is not possible)

Yep, I don't think there's any way for them to track that you're the person associated with the email if you search for it in a new tab, but an incognito window can't hurt.

It is not, a spamfilter tries to understand if the message is legitimate, while an ad injection algorithm tries to understand the message to extract your interests from it. One of the algorithms is actually trying to extract privacy relevant information, while in the case of a spamfilter any such data is just coincidental.

So? Where's the breach? An algorithm knowing the subject of the message doesn't worry me, as long as all they do with it is display ads from the same broad category. If they're doing something they're not telling us, well, any other email provider could also be doing this.

No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads.

Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.

If you don't want it, don't use Gmail. It's not fine to call an electrician to your house to fix the power point in return for you letting them sell you random things, and then say "no, I don't want the things, I just want the fix!"

It's not a breach of your privacy any more than spam filters reading your email is.

> If you don't want it, don't use Gmail.

I'm pretty sure that is exactly the point Microsoft are making with this campaign.

They are using the fact you can't opt out of a "feature" as an excuse to opt out of a "product".

They are leveraging peoples perception of 'Privacy' to do that.

Really do you think buying an Audi will mean you can kiss the girl at Prom? Or by wearing Calvin Klein you'll look amazing from every angle? ... No, Ads lie all the time... Chrome isn't technically "Faster" but they still run ads that say as much...

You are conflating two different issues, "I don't like seeing ads" and "algorithms reading my mail is a privacy breach". If you don't like seeing ads, I think even Gmail themselves would tell you not to use Gmail. But it's not a breach of privacy!

Or are you trolling?

I'm not conflating anything, I'm pointing our privacy was just a vehicle that was being used to deliver a message, and that message is valid:

"If you don't want gmail splashing ads all over your messages, switch to outlook."

No need to be a jerk about it and accuse me of trolling.

> I'm pointing our privacy was just a vehicle that was being used to deliver a message, and that message is valid

The vehicle is not, though. There is no issue of privacy. They might as well have said "Gmail kills babies, switch to outlook", it's exactly as true (which is, to say, not at all).

You have been profiled, and the profile works over time and across content. That data exists, and is sold to advertisers. The profile is about you, including private discourse between, say, you and family, and numerous research papers have shown it ties to exactly you even if it's supposedly anonymous. This is absolutely a privacy "issue" even if it's not clear to you personally how this might be a privacy breach.

That's far different than spam, where the messages are profiled, not the people exchanging them.

There are two different ways ads can be displayed. Either the message is scanned for a topic and ads are displayed to you based on it, or they build a profile about you, like you described. You can opt out of that:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en

You can pay for gmail and have no ads:

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6...

Here is perhaps a better link: http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html

In general Google Apps is a great product for small-medium sized businesses. As is Office 365.

Google is horrible for a company's IT security team though. Very difficult to lock things down from a firewall level when Google won't tell you the IP addresses individual apps run on (say if I want to allow Google Hangouts but not Chrome Remote Desktop), and some of their apps won't work properly through a proxy or VPN. There's enough cases where Google has been unable/unwilling to help configure that someone could easily begin to question their value.

Google seemingly doesn't want you to allow access to one thing but not another; it's an all or nothing proposition. Their heavy use of load-balancing exacerbates this issue.

"You are doing it wrong".

You do not lock the apps by IP, because they run on many different machines in different data centers. What is running on specific machine is dynamic, based on momentary requirements.

If you do not want to allow Google Hangouts, use your administrator console.

It's not quite that simple due to the VPN and proxy configurations we have. Google Hangouts just will not work over a VPN unless it's allowed directly through the firewall, which requires a firewall rule. Typically firewall rules are based on IP addresses and ports. Allowed Google Hangouts (which we want) also has the side effect of allowing Chrome Remote Desktop (which we don't want) directly through the firewall.

"You are doing it wrong" is not an acceptable answer in an enterprise environment unless the vendor is willing to work with their customers to make sure it's possible to actually do it right. But that would mean the vendor would need real customer service...

Unfortunately for you, you can't pick and choose what you want when Google are providing you with a free email service. Generating personalized ads is how they make money from this venture.

As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."

Actually, you can. Despite what the website says, you can opt out of personalized advertising:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...

That's not a privacy issue. That's a I don't want feature X (ads) issue.

Well, no. It's not the same thing. Scanning my content so that you make more money is different from scanning my content so that I get less spam. The second is a service. If you don't encrypt your email (almost nobody does it) every server serving your email can access the email text. The point is what they do with it. If they use it to make something useful for me (allowing me to read email) that's OK. Targeting ads is, as a minimum, borderline...

You knew this when you signed up. Plus, it's not a privacy issue. No human is sitting there, reading your emails. How is the spam algorithm reading your emails fine from a privacy standpoint while the ads algorithm isn't?

How do you know Google doesn't create and store an ad profile based on what your email contents usually are? Example: StravosK is likely to have high cholesterol and too much debt.

How do I know Microsoft (or any other provider) doesn't? This is a risk you accept when you give your data to third parties.

How do I know Microsoft (or any other provider) doesn't?

Anything can happen but Google admits that it scans your email to serve relevant ads. Now is that data deleted after that email or do they note that you have x, y and possibly z?

Whatever they think will work for them. It's just not striking a chord with the HN audience, clearly. I find it difficult to believe that it would strike a chord with any large audiences, but perhaps their focus groups say otherwise.

For me the Scroogle site gives off the same sort of vibe that a conspiracy theory site does. It doesn't look like it came out of Microsoft. Perhaps it's not meant to. Perhaps they want it to look like a grassroots movement against Google. In the end everyone sees the Outlook logo, though. Then it feels a little deceptive.

So when DDG does it, it's awesome and ballsy.

But when Microsoft does it, it's pathetic and scammy?

Who said this is pathetic or scammy?

EDIT: And if someone did say that, who says they're the same people who were in praise of DuckDuckGo?

Because we like Google, of course, and hate Microsoft, of course.

Maybe because DuckDuckGo differentiates themselves better. Microsoft is more of the same - maybe marginally better in one respect (allowing opt-out) but atrocious in many others - almost every article I've seen has had no trouble balancing the story with talk of Microsoft's past transgressions.

On the flip side, I agree that Google should allow you to opt out of this, but it's pretty easy to use any email client to access your gmail e.g. Thunderbird, Apple Mail, even (shudders) Outlook / Outlook Express

So the only thing those ads are actually paying for are Google's UI.

When you judge someone this aggressively, expect your reputation to be taken into account when people evaluate your judgment. The difference in reputation between DDG and Microsoft is huge.

I find it hilarious that I emotionally support Google enough that my immediate reaction is "HEY ITS NOT SO BAD" when I see this page; and then roll my eyes at the petition. At the same time I don't use facebook for privacy issues and the thing I am always going to do tomorrow is set up my own mail server. Brains are funny like that.

Is it only an emotional reaction, though?

When an algorithm sifts through my e-mail the result is that I see a more targeted ad.

When I mess up and inappropriately share something on Facebook it is obvious to lots of people in my life. (And, of course, Facebook tends to vomit up some sort of privacy outrage every five months, so there is always the nagging worry that something one did share in a reasonable way is now being seen in a way one didn't intend under the old "rules of the road".

While some people may care about privacy as an abstract first principle, I imagine many people are more concerned about the consequences of other people knowing something about them.

Point taken, it's not only an emotional reaction; I get that context based ads aren't the same as someone reading my email. I was really just making light of what is an obvious contradiction in my values. We would be naive to think that all google is doing is spam filtering and context-based ads. They are also giving up personal info thousands of times a year at government request, etc.

The main thing is not owning my own data. Google owns my data and I am powerless, more or less, against them. When other companies own data I get all indignant about it; but rationalize it when it's Google.

If you have an account you can delete everything (including your email), remove data from specific Google services, or adjust some of their ad targeting assumptions. I cannot remember how to get to the ad targeting settings, but you can find it if you need it.

Microsoft has lost it. If "scanning email" is their only concern, they're doing it too, for the purpose of "prioritizing my privacy" or whatever. I don't get it why people make a big deal out of all this. As long as private emails are not being read by real people, I doubt most people (who know what "scanning email" is) care.

There's a difference. Microsoft is doing malware scanning, which does mean they access message content, but not in a way that is meaningful to privacy.

Google is scanning and indexing your material. They are using that index to build a dossier on you, and they are measuring the accuracy of that dossier by evaluating your responses to ads and content fed to you.

I'm not sure about that. I think that serving relevant ads for emails doesn't need to associate the person with the email with the ad. Or does it? I guess when you open an email, they just extract the keywords out of it, and then run a search against their ads index to serve relevant ads. If that's the case, I don't think extracting keywords from email is different from scanning it against malware.

Besides, building an index is just necessary for providing email search. I'm sure outlook mail does that too, if their search is any good. I haven't used it, so I don't know.

If you have 15 minutes, Cory Doctrow wrote a great short story called Scroogled[1], that presents a possibly scary future and highlights potential risks with email scanning.

It is science fiction but it is interesting to ponder.

[1]http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

Agreed. It's annoying how Microsoft misleads the reader into thinking that they personally look through every email.

What I dont get is, how is a software scanning my email creepy? As it everyone scans every bloody email to seek out spam. Spam filters already use "known" spam styles to check for potential spam messages.

In this case they are scanning to show you ads. Pardon me if I am missing something, but I really don't understand wtf is wrong with people calling this creepy.

Well believe it or not but some people don't like the idea of targeted ads, which is the result of Google's scanning. Small anecdote, when my 66 year old father found out that a grocery store chain was sending him "personal deals" based on what he had bought using their card he immediately went home and cut it. He thought (and thinks) that no one should be keeping tabs on his buying patterns for commercial purposes, even though he might stand to gain from it. I was kind of suprised by his harsch reaction at first but later I was actually kind of proud of the fact that he cared so much about his personal privacy and integrity. This might seem shocking to the "web generation" but I think it can be a quite healthy and refreshing mindset sometimes.

On a personal note I have taken an interest in Xamarin's stuff lately and since Google is the all-seeing-eye of the web that means I now see Xamarin ads wherever I go (those not caught by adblock that is). Maybe I should care more as well, the more I think of it the less ok it feels.

More precisely, they are scanning in an attempt to improve the relevance of the ads.

I don't get why context relevant ads are bad. If I am going to see ads, I would rather they be ads that might be useful.

As long as they aren't releasing my mail for all to see, and it's an automated thing... so what.

Exactly.

I think a lot of people on here somehow got the idea that Google is transmitting your personal information to the advertisers/clients, which is obviously nonsense.

All this does is build a rough profile of your interests and then shows you adverts relevant to those interests.

It's just an attack full of misleading information for those who are less informed, spam filters also "read" your messages. I don't see why a computer reading your messages to produce targeted advertisements is bad anyway, it's an automated process the same as spam filtering.

Does outlook.com still put adverts at the end of your emails like hotmail.com used to?

Can you imagine how funny an anti-Microsoft ad campaign along the same lines would be? Microsoft is trying to start a gunfight and it's armed with a nerf axe.

As a cynical admirer of Google I don't care for the way advertising drives everything it does, but I cannot remember the last time I noticed an ad in gmail (Twitter, for example, manages to be far worse while still appearing not to have a business model.)

Meanwhile, Microsoft, the original f. you, f. everybody, software company is shipping an OS with advertising and junkware baked into it. Who else is doing that?

Are you sure this is where you want to go today Microsoft? Yes. No. Abort. Retry. Cancel. OK.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, the original f. you, f. everybody aoftware company is shipping an OS with advertising and junkware baked into it. Who else is doing that?

Canonical.

Haha. Well luckily they're not running these ads.

I note in another post in this thread that it appears MS is doing exactly what gmail does AS WELL so as usual MS wins the chutzpah award on top of everything else.

Where is the advertising and junkware built into Windows?

There are apps built into windows 8 that display ads.

http://www.zdnet.com/how-outraged-should-you-be-about-ads-in...

Link to an article explaining how they aren't really part of windows 8 but merely an "experiment". Fact is, install windows 8 and some of your apps will show ads (and when we saw them we had no idea that these apps were part of some "experiment" and not really windows 8).

Ah, so some apps that replace the Internet shortcuts that used to be installed with Windows have ads, just like the websites they're replacing. MSN showed a hell of a lot of ads, too.

Honestly, with a million little papercuts people are hell-bent on hating everything that comes from Microsoft. If you manufacture your outrage just right, it almost sounds legitimate.

So I take it Microsoft is also going to disable their spam filters?

Yes, because Microsoft never does anything like this:

http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-m...

Was this really by Microsoft? It looks unprofessional and scammy, like if someone wanted to make Microsoft look.bad.

Granted, from past MS behavior it would not be a surprise if this was really their work...

http://whois.domaintools.com/scroogled.com

    Registrant:
        Domain Administrator
        Microsoft Corporation
        One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond WA 98052
        US
         +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

    Domain Name: scroogled.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

    Administrative Contact:
        Domain Administrator
        Microsoft Corporation
        One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond WA 98052
        US
         +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
        MSN Hostmaster
        Microsoft Corporation
        One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond WA 98052
        US
         +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

    Created on..............: 2011-12-27.
    Expires on..............: 2014-12-27.
    Record last updated on..: 2012-11-27.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    ns1.msft.net
    ns4.msft.net
    ns3.msft.net
    ns2.msft.net
    ns5.msft.net

This is definitely by Microsoft. The site uses the following nameservers, which are under Microsoft control and cannot be forged.

    ns3.msft.net

    ns4.msft.net

    ns1.msft.net

    ns2.msft.net

    ns5.msft.net

Pathetic stuff.

But google DO go through every message to sell ads. How is this pathetic? Some people don't like the fact that their emails are used in that way, so focusing on that is just marketing.

No different to google running ads for chrome saying "it's faster"... it IS, and some people care about that.

Saying that chrome is "faster" is one thing.

Saying that IE is "slower" is another.

Likewise Microsoft could have made a ad that showed how they protect your privacy, instead of pointing how their biggest competitor don't.

I feel like MS is trying to mislead people into believing that GMail employees go through your mail (they superpose inquisitive human eyes over the gmail video for instance).

It's quite a different issue if it's just a computer program parsing your data. After all, SMTP programs go through your your email too.

I'm all for people caring more about their privacy and be more educated about giving their personal infos online, but the solution to that is PGP, not Outlook.

Microsoft makes Microsoft look bad, unfortunately for them. But it seems to be in their company's DNA to spread FUD about others. It's like crack to them.

It looks pretty much in line with last years anti-gmail campaign:

http://www.theverge.com/microsoft/2012/2/2/2766215/gmail-man...

This site suffers many ailments, but I think the biggest problem is that the examples are not very compelling. They all amount to Google's contextual ad algorithm not being perfect and getting the context a bit wrong. The (supposedly devastating) effect of that is that if you bother to read the ads, the ad won't be relevant like it's supposed to be.

It feels like this initiative came top-down at Microsoft, probably starting with Ballmer's quote about "Google reading your email." I wonder whether Ballmer has even used email. It feels as though they're fighting an imagined problem that doesn't end up being much of an issue in practice.

That was meant to read "I wonder whether Ballmer has even used Gmail". (of course he's used email!)

This is just pathetic, first the whole Android virus thing, now it's the email. What the actual f*ck?

I'm not a pro product guy, I always choose the right tool for the job, but this stuff enrages me and makes me look at MS as scumbags.

Will be pretty interesting. Feels like this is going to massively blow up in their face. Never been a fan of attack adds especially if you can improve your own product instead of making the other one look bad. Just a bad mindset to try to blame the other guy.

The irony of Microsoft using privacy/security to attack another company is not lost on me.

Guess what, those mails can be read if your OS gets exlpoited over and over and there's a backdoor on most joe shmoe home computers anyways :P

That being said the campaign obviously has a point. <insert rant on educating the masses about encryption>

> Never been a fan of attack adds especially if you can improve your own product instead of making the other one look bad. Just a bad mindset to try to blame the other guy.

It's not a one-man product that had to decide whether to focus on improving or attack ads - product people will work on improving it regardless of whether the marketing people decide on positive or attack adverts.

This is surprising -- I know! -- but competing companies sometimes advertise against each other. Microsoft have been doing this for quite a while (see Gmail man [1]) and they seem to think that the privacy aspect is enough of a weakness in the Google armor that it's an effective campaign. So far I don't think Microsoft have had as many problems on the privacy front as Google or Facebook so this is probably not a rash decision on their part.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXqrTfOWx60

I don't think it is that unsurprising either, nor do I have a problem with this kind of advertising. My only gripe would be that I believe you can opt-out of targeted gmail ads now so it would appear this is either out of date or inaccurate.

In which a pot describes a few defining characteristics of a kettle.

This is definitely not the best way to base a marketing campaign on privacy issues.

That said consumer products are traditionally ad supported, and regular consumer appear to tolerate it, mostly.

Internet advertising is quite unlike TV or print advertising though, and consumers are definitely not sufficiently informed of how much they're being tracked, particularly by products of companies like Google and Facebook, that live on advertising in one way or another.

Google Web Analytics (reportedly used on half of the websites on the net) and the "like", "tweet" and "+1" buttons are arguably much more likely to track your interests than GMail, even if you have never signed up for a single Google, Twitter or Facebook service. My guess is the creatives who build the campaign either had no idea or didn't know how to communicate it in a personified way, which has more emotional impact.

So Microsoft's campaign sucks, and I have a fundamental anti-Microsoft bias that stems from their despicable business conduct in the 80s and 90s, but Google isn't any better these days, Schmidt's comments on the "creepy line" make me shudder. Perhaps it can be a good starting point for discussing privacy issues.

Privacy shouldn't be a competitive advantage, it should be a sacred right of anybody who has children or financial/health/private issues.

If you don't own your own email server, then those emails are going to get stored and processed on a third-party's servers. If you don't encrypt your emails, then even your ISP can read them.

I don't like Google's potential for evil. They got a little creepy lately. However, look who's talking ... if Microsoft wants me to ever believe something they say, then they must provide me with a contract, in writing, with terms that can't be changed whenever they feel like it.

What the fuck is wrong with them? They keep doing this shit.

Registrant: Domain Administrator Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

    Domain Name: scroogled.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

    Administrative Contact:
        Domain Administrator
        Microsoft Corporation
        One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond WA 98052
        US
         +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
        MSN Hostmaster
        Microsoft Corporation
        One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond WA 98052
        US
         +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

    Created on..............: 2011-12-27.
    Expires on..............: 2014-12-27.
    Record last updated on..: 2012-11-27.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    ns1.msft.net
    ns4.msft.net
    ns3.msft.net
    ns2.msft.net
    ns5.msft.net

its Microsoft for sure...really Microsoft directly attacking Google..would be interesting to see Google's response..i dont think they will sit calm now.

Google may not care about it. Microsoft surely not a competition for Google now. Had it been Apple we may have seen a reply.

Because Microsoft aren't co-operating with LEAs on request for Skype data.

I'd rather Google give me ads than turn over private conversations to The Met.

You know what? This is good for Google - Based on the idea that "Any publicity is good publicity". So, Microsoft is shelling out huge dollars to make Google popular.

As far as searches are concerned, based on my experience using the two extensively, I think for atleast another decade, I will find myself 'Googling' more than 'Binging'.

It's interesting to see major players beginning to compete on the level of privacy they offer to their users. "Personal information" has become one of the currencies on the web by which we "pay" for free services. Microsoft now seems to try a "low-cost" strategy to gain market share.

Although this particular campaign is new, this has been going on for a while:

http://www.webpronews.com/is-bing-right-about-people-getting...

Fun fact for Microsoft here: Outlook's servers also read your e-mail. How else do they store, retrieve and transmit it?

I don't see how automatic scanning in order to display advertisements is any different. All machinery, no human ever reads your mail.

When you have to run attack ads to try to win in business - you've lost the game. Microsoft will be around for ages - but quite frankly they are irrelevant and are in the process of being commoditized.

There is also the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (http://www.i-comp.org/), a fairly neutral sounding lobby group which (according to Wikipedia) is sponsored by Microsoft.

ICOMP bought an amusing half page ad in a national UK newspaper in the Autumn, quoting the owner of Hot Maps in saying that Google Maps essentially destroyed his promising business. Look at http://hot-map.com/ and judge for yourself..

I think you can opt out: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...

This is the worst advertising method possible, rather than making a good product and focusing on its advantages towards competition, they prefer to paint them in bad light.

That is focusing on your advantage, the message ends with "Why outlook.com is better"

I don't like it as an advertising strategy, and I don't particularly like Microsoft in general, but at least their aim is right: Google has absolutely zero respect for privacy.

Microsoft's attempt to push Google down the same hole they dug themselves with monopoly abuse however is as tasteless as it is unnecessary: Google's own infinite arrogance will ensure they'll keep digging until they face a public and regulatory backlash.

Funny MS suggest they'll do this themselves: "We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of personalized content and advertising." from http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.mspx

Yeah, it negative, but with a funny twist to it. The problem is that most people lack a sense of humor and might take it too seriously. Though its quite ironic that MS is playing the privacy card. Its not like Google is a perfect company. They are the new MS. Even PG mentioned it in one of his essays.

It's not like everyone at Google is reading my email. No privacy intrusion here IMHO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battl...

I'd love to see the followup where she discovers Google's algorithm is smarter than it looks, and actually her husband has a huge gambling problem and has completely blown their life savings.

May I suggest the #craprasoft tag on twitter to try to start a trend countering this advertising? Really dislike it.

Hah, Microsoft positioning itself as having the moral high ground.

This is amusing in so many different ways.

How the world has turned upside down.

Well as a user of both, it's certainly factual. I have no problem with this.

For reference, I hate both companies equally!

Why do you hate them? I love them.

If your emails are in plaintext the email host can always read/scan your stuff.

If that bothers you, use PGP.

if facebook has taught us anything then it's the fact that most people don't really care about privacy. you are wasting your advertising money again, microsoft!

Whoever green-lit this at Microsoft should be fired.

Winning the hearts and minds, I see.

Negative marketing never works.

I don't care. Microsoft sucks.

Fucking disgusting.

If anyone doubts that this is anything other than a cynical PR attack do consider the source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battl...

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-03/did-mark-pen...

And are we to conclude that Microsoft doesn't provide spam/scam protection as we are led to believe that they don't scan email contents?! when they use terminology that suggests human intervention they lose all credibility.

It’s also pathetic how increasingly they mention Google in their PR/marketing campaigns, it’s as if they believe it’s the only way for them to remain relevant.

There's more:

http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an...

Surely I didn't read that right, MS have a $50 million budget just for Google smear campaigns!?

One of the biggest things that makes my blood boil is when corporations invest large sums of money to force consumers to use their crappy products instead of spending that money on making less crappy products that consumers choose to buy.

It should make your blood boil that our government operates in such a way that companies see this as just another vector for competing against each other.

Dan Lyon's piece is pure sensationalism. Reality is likely more like: 1) there is a government affairs group inside MSFT with a $50m+ annual budget (not crazy given the DOJ impact on the company) 2) they hire a connected political machinists and give him marching orders to drum up concern over Google in DC (the same way Oracle, Novell, Netscape did against MSFT--http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/homeworks/Microsoft_Case.p...). 3) Guy needs a network of folks to do his deeds—he runs around DC recruiting people telling him he has a massive budget because money seems to be the most effective way to persuade people in Washington (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...).

Meanwhile, there's a guy with a Google laptop bag doing the same thing.

Microsoft's huge smear budget is harmful to taxpayers too, because they actively have tricked large segments of the U.S. Federal Government (for example, the Dept. of Defense) into only using Microsoft software due to "the inherently insecure nature of open source." Even worse, they smear any browser that isn't IE. That holds back software adoption big time.

Warn your friends! On Facebook!

Deleted comment

irony...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com