News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by ntakasaki on Thursday March 20, 2014 @05:48PM (#7439064)
From your own link

>“Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your sent and received email messages in order to display targeted ads. ... Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your incoming email from other email service for the purpose of targeting ads. ... Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your entire inbox for the purpose of targeting ads.”

Google does all of the above, are you claiming there is no difference between the two services?

The new lawsuit against Google for building profiles of children using its free Google Apps for Education service has even more info:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/google-data-mining-...

>A Google spokeswoman confirmed to Education Week that the company “scans and indexes” the emails of all Apps for Education users for a variety of purposes, including potential advertising, via automated processes that cannot be turned off--even for Apps for Education customers who elect not to receive ads.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 20, 2014 @05:56PM (#7439126)
The problem is they criticize google while doing something far more invasive than letting robots look for keywords.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by fleitz on Thursday March 20, 2014 @06:07PM (#7439198)
Google has the exact same wording in their EULA:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

"protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 20, 2014 @07:10PM (#7439520)
Well that's bad of google but doesn't improve microsoft's argument. If anything they becomes more hypocritical because "why isn't microsoft criticizing that part....oh"
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by corin_ on Thursday March 20, 2014 @07:27PM (#7439615)
They become more hypocritical for not criticising about something they do themselves?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 20, 2014 @07:51PM (#7439741)
The lowest tier of being hypocritical is criticising all of google's failings when they have related but different failings.

The medium tier is criticising all of google's failings does except for what they also do.

The highest tier is criticising google for something they also do.

I thought they were at the low tier, but they're actually at the medium tier. So 'more'.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by corin_ on Thursday March 20, 2014 @08:07PM (#7439802)
Sorry but I completely disagree, by not criticising Google for doing something they do themselves they are literally not being hypocritical, by definition. You can still criticise them for the situation, just not with that word. You can still call them hypocritical for the overall situation too, just not by picking out a specific narrow case where they have avoided being hypocritical.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by Dylan16807 on Friday March 21, 2014 @02:14AM (#7440921)
They did not perform the actions google did, but the criticism they made of google's actions could be applied to their actions too. They claimed a high ground on the issue of privacy. They have no such high ground. This is hypocrisy.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by ewoodrich on Thursday March 20, 2014 @08:22PM (#7439860)
I don't think that makes any sense.

If I criticize someone for talking loudly during class, and I haven't talked at all, that wouldn't be hypocritical, even if we were both browsing Facebook or something.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by Dylan16807 on Friday March 21, 2014 @02:09AM (#7440911)
If you criticize them for being too loud with their talking while you were repeatedly slamming books against each other, you're being hypocritical. It's not the same behavior but it's still an inappropriate loud behavior. In the microsoft/google case it's privacy invasion.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Microsoft sniffed blogger's Hotmail account to trace leak by stingraycharles on Thursday March 20, 2014 @05:58PM (#7439136)
There is nothing limiting them from doing so. Just because they behave like this today doesn't mean they will still do so tomorrow. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they already did so today. It wouldn't be the first time marketing saying something the technicians don't agree with. :)
[ Parent | on HN ]