Comment by rlu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rlu | Hacker News Reader

(I work for Microsoft, though not for Outlook.com)

Can we stop with the hyperboles and actually be realistic?

Quitting the use of Microsoft services won't really solve anything since, as has been made clear in other HN threads, the policies of other big players allow for the same (e.g. Gmail).

Arguing that "oh but Gmail hasn't actually proven they'll use this tactic" is absolutely absurd. They're saying they can, so nothing stops them from doing it tomorrow. If they really wouldn't ever do so then that clause would not be on any terms that users agree to. Ditto for all other major email providers.

Okay, so next we can say "aha! I'll just stand up my own email service!". Two reality checks...

--First: if you email anyone using a major email provider then you haven't really made much progress. Same even if they email you and you ignore them.

--Second: it seems completely unrealistic that this solution would scale to the entire world. NSA fiasco has proven to me that people value convenience more than privacy. Otherwise this "stand up your own email/cloud" trend would have started last summer. None of my friends (even tech friends) have switched away from gmail or whatever major provider they use.

This situation obviously sucks, but I don't see many reasonable responses to this. We're smart people here. Let's act like it.

I feel that the problem is with MS marketing.

http://www.scroogled.com/mail

I can't believe they're still running this crap - I it's been a year and a half now? My opinion of Microsoft took a complete nosedive after seeing this campaign.

I fail to see how the two are even remotely the same. Google continuously scans email content to sell ads; while Microsoft does it once and admits it so they can catch someone stealing trade secrets.

While I agree that the Scroogled campaign does tread slightly into the hyperbole, I can't agree that this the double-standard that most are making it out to be.

It doesn't matter if they're the same. The point of the Scroogled campaign is to say "the other companies read your emails, while we don't". Like every other MS marketing campaign, it doesn't take long to unravel.

Do they read your email? Your parent specifically debunked the point your trying to make. Microsoft selectively reading one persons mail who was leaking their activation technology, is not the same as reading their customers emails.

Hyperbole doesnt make your case stronger. In light of every other privacy issue happening in the world, this is a non story. I think it would be useful to prioritize outrage, and direct it to a spy agency or some other countries military.

I'm not entirely sure my previous posts were clear enough.

I'm not saying that Outlook / Hotmail is better or worse than competitors in terms of privacy. I'm saying that an MS Marketing campaign has helped create an unrealistic perception of MS email services for the public, which after this PR debacle has created yet another unrealistic perception of MS email services.

With Google, no real human is sitting around sifting through your email. It's all done programmatically.

I don't care if some algorithm scans my email for keywords, but I don't want Bob to read my emails.

"Ditto for all other major email providers."

Fastmail is a pretty major mail provider, I've read their TOS and Privacy Policy, and don't seen any clauses that allow them to read my mail the way Microsoft and Gmail claim to.

The difference is that you have to pay for Fastmail, so you're a customer and not the product; which is a good tradeoff.

> Otherwise this "stand up your own email/cloud" trend would have started last summer.

It did! Understandably, since it's not absolutely-zero-effort, there hasn't been 100% uptake, but Alex Payne started up a project that lets you run you own private cloud with surprisingly little configuration:

https://github.com/al3x/sovereign

I've been using it for a few months now and have been quite happy with it. I'm in agreement with you, though, that it won't scale to the entire world, but I don't think that it needs to.

Well, it will solve the problem of supporting Microsoft, a known bad actor.

Google didn't make Outlook man ;)

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