Microsoft Will Not Use Personal Data For Profit, Says Satya Nadella

vtqhtr413

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took a potshot at Google and Facebook in an interview with the London Times yesterday, saying Microsoft (MSFT, +0.24%) doesn’t use customers’ personal data for profit, unlike some other companies. It’s not that it doesn’t have the data — LinkedIn, which Microsoft bought in 2016, counts 562 million users, and Bing remains the No. 3 search engine worldwide, with Microsoft websites accounting for 24% of search traffic on U.S. desktops.

“We don’t want to overmonetize. If anything, one of the things we’ve done is to is to make sure that the utility is maximized for the users,” Nadella said.

Nadella has called data privacy “a human right” in the past, as has Apple CEO Tim Cook. He said at a Fortune event in June that Apple (AAPL, -7.02%) executives predicted that the creation of “detailed” online profiles about users “would result in significant harm over time” and that those profiles could be “used for too many nefarious things.”

Microsoft may have learned its lesson in the early 2000s, when it faced antitrust authorities in the U.S. and the EU. Now the younger generation of tech giants is facing the music. Google (GOOGL, -1.29%) has been fined billions by the European Commission in antitrust cases. Facebook (FB, -1.05%) is still trying to recover from the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, in which personal data for as many as 87 million users was improperly accessed.

Full story Microsoft Will Not Use Personal Data For Profit, Says Satya Nadella
 
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Eddie Morra

Technically, they will always be making profit from users personal data, because it is used internally to help them make predictions on trends and make improvements to their existing services (be it from crash dumps to telemetry on actively used features or how those features are used etc.).

Obviously they are referring to using the data for a profit as in... selling the data to third-parties. If they do not do that then that is pretty good to hear however a few words from an interview certainly does not prove that it does not happen and lying on an interview isn't illegal. If the Terms and Conditions/Privacy Policies enforce consent for sharing the users data for a profit then it means they can do it as long as it is within legal boundaries, period.

There's no need to be paranoid about privacy though... all companies pretty much have some form of data collection and that is pretty normal, especially if you are a free customer. There are some companies which are too aggressive with it (and this leads me to dislike them) but I only really take a care about it when it is a vendor I do not depend on.

I depend on Microsoft services like Windows, Visual Studio, Azure, and more... therefore I am more lenient towards them when it comes to data collection guidelines. However, another company I do not use anything from which have an identical level of data collection, my opinion will be more aggressive because I am less-biased towards them due to not needing an interaction with them on any level.

If you want 100% privacy then stop using the internet altogether. That is the reality of it. It will never happen. Face facts and learn to live with it.

That doesn't mean that really intrusive behaviour should be acceptable or that certain vendors are not too aggressive with data collection and should be allowed to walk over people in aggressive ways when it comes to data collection, but I am just saying that there is no such thing as 100% privacy when you're on the internet. And a lot of companies will have some form of telemetry one way or another. Some companies are more ethical and better than others.
 

jogs

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You're all wrong, Mr. Nadella is right. They will not use data for profit, that is profit of the users. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
But they will use it for MS's gain. :emoji_money_mouth::emoji_money_mouth::emoji_money_mouth::emoji_money_mouth:
 

RejZoR

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Trusting microsoft not to use personal data for profit is like giving a stranger your bank card and pin number and believing your money is safe

Microsoft keeps quite high standards for privacy actually. It's the paranoia people made around Windows 8.1/10 telemetry. Me included partially. Then I read more about change in Windows QA design and how many people they let go because they switched to telemetry over a lot of people doing QA. And that makes sense.

Besides, Microsoft, just like Apple is making money by selling actual products. What does Google do? They mostly offer everything for free and make money off your data with exception of very few upgrades like extra space for Google Drive. That's the big difference. Even Outlook, they offer free e-mail service, but they are selling 356 package as something you'd want to have. And for the price, it's what you'd want to have. 69€ a year for full Office package, 1TB OneDrive and as I understand it, same space shared with Outlook mailbox. That's a good deal and if it's sustainable for Microsoft, I don't see why they'd have to sell your data like Google does.

Besides, people are getting aware of what Google or Facebook are doing. Not en mass, but people are waking up. Just look at the hike of new users switching to services like DuckDuckGo and ProtonMail, because they are starting to value their privacy. And I think Microsoft is aware of it. It'll become a niche not really favorable to companies like Google or Facebook. It's the exact opposite of what they do.
 

Arequire

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The issue is the definition of personal data is, quite frankly, idiotic. Can't have access to my name or address but a list of every website I've ever visited throughout my entire adult life is A-OK, and from that list of websites companies get to infer about things about me such as my gender, race, sexuality, financial status, medical history, political affiliation, and so on. Still A-OK.

It's ridiculous and shows how poorly legislators have failed to keep up with the ever-growing digital way of life.
 
D

Deleted member 178

Lol, I laugh every time when a privacy thread is created, people are focusing their anger and rage on few tech giants (which are over scrutinized already) when the real privacy intruders are more anonymous and insidious, like some websites (deploying tons of tracking and analytic tools), banks (having access to all your financial moves, etc...). But no, it is normal, but Google or Microsoft that really made the net accessible and easier for everyone? Boohoo shame on them, they must burn...

I rather prefer Google to have my datas than some unknown and shady site owner

Come on people, wake up and stop being ignorant sheeps and parrots...
 
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