Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 160 posts

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#141

Post by PascLeRasc »

gnicholas wrote: post #47

I can't believe how aggressive Teams is at inserting itself in my login items (on a Mac). At first, I thought it just happened when I installed the application. But nope — any time I open Teams, it will re-insert itself in my list of login items. This happens no matter how many times I have manually removed it. I think it even happens more than once per launch because I recently launched it to join a call and then im…

Check out Cisco WebEx sometime if you want to see how bad it can get. It is not possible to quit the app, it will re-open itself automatically and stick in your dock + app switcher. Nothing in Login Items and no setting to disable this. I found the LaunchDaemon doing this and deleted it, and it figured out and refused to work when launched manually.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#142

Post by PascLeRasc »

cwhiz wrote: post #129
2rsf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack has it's benefits, but many of the complaints about Teams are because of its flexibility. For example the clutter of teams channels and chats can be simplified to Slack level if used with discipline (or maybe it's even configurable). The way to IM individuals is cumbersome but consistent with other cumbersome Office products.

My biggest complaint is that the “teams” section is in a completely separate tab from the “chat” section. I find that companies tend to gravitate toward one of the two, because it’s impossible to keep switching.

If your company does this, you just have to give up on clearing the notification badge. You'd have to click on each individual "team" and then hover over each team's new message long enough that Teams is convinced you've read it. There might be a "mark all as read" button somewhere but Microsoft certainly doesn't make it easy to find.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#143

Post by specialist »

xyzelement wrote: post #139

Employer surveillance is the one privacy issue I can't get too upset about. If I enter the relationship voluntary and I acknowledge that there's no expectation of privacy on my employer's systems, and I understand that this is considered needed by the company on one hand and I am being paid on the other, I just don't see where there's room for me to complain. It comes down more to how I feel about my employer to begi…

David Graeber's BB Jobs is the second most important book I've read this last year. Truly ejected me out of my worldview.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Previously, a HN commentator shared the distinction between "doing" and "justifying" work (IIRC). I really like this framing, dichotomy. And would like to synthesize with Graeber's thesis.

Another interesting contemporary view is Scott Adams' "confusopoly". I have a few other issues with Adams; I wouldn't be able to get out of bed every day if I shared his bleak view of humanity. But I can't deny that he does have some very penetrating insights

BS Jobs and confusopoly are complimentary. Young idealistic me always equated capitalism with producing stuff efficiently for profit, and the sharing of that surplus. The kids today use terms like "late stage capitalism". Graeber examines financialization leading to managerialism, aka rent seeking. My rephrasing is the point is to maximize inefficiency to better transfer wealth to the management.

Apologies for this stream of conscious ideation. I'm still chewing on these concepts, insights.

Meanwhile, I sympathize with your situation and hope things improve, for everyone.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#144

Post by mktk1001 »

chaostheory wrote: post #96

The thing I hate the most about Teams is how it shows you as idle within what seems like 30 seconds vs only going idle once your machine starts to sleep. There’s no way to configure this as an end user. I really started hating Teams with a passion after that. MS is losing the goodwill from Nadella rise to the CEO seat

I use ziggle mouse to keep my active status

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#145

Post by twobitshifter »

Just a reminder that Teams at it’s core is just a web app. It’s possible to retain almost all the functionality by just visiting the teams website.

If anyone is annoyed by the startup time, the snooping, or the resource usage, you can try the web app instead.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#146

Post by masswerk »

varispeed wrote: post #105
masswerk wrote: post #39

I really think, companies should actively inform their team leaders that metrics and scores are not an adequate measure for performance. E.g., a person may have great scores, but is in actuality just micro-managing their incompetence at the cost of everyone else's performance. Metrics may indicate a certain behavior, or they may hint at the opposite, or they may be even somewhat random, as they record just a certain…

If they hired team managers that use those metrics, do you think that their peers would know this is a bad practice? It seems like this problem widespread and nobody wants to say "we don't need this data", so yes this should come from the top. However, I fear that if a company starts to suffer, the shareholders would want to know answers and data. Would any exec have dared to say "sorry we don't have any metrics abou…

The problem is: It's not a viable metric in any way, meaning, it's not a metric at all. It's just another incentive for some "alternate reality".

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#147

Post by cwhiz »

2rsf wrote: post #138
cwhiz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest complaint is that the “teams” section is in a completely separate tab from the “chat” section. I find that companies tend to gravitate toward one of the two, because it’s impossible to keep switching.

It is more confusing than in Slack but Slack uses a different section as well. I don't like how Slack keeps only a limited list of recent chats there, the hit-miss ratio for me is terrible and I usually need to re-search for the person I want to chat with.

Slack let’s you create your own sections. The default layout has channels on top and DMs on bottom, but you can put them anywhere.

And that kind of thing is my run with Slack. It has answers for many UX complaints, but they are buried in settings somewhere or behind a paywall.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#148

Post by 015a »

varispeed wrote: post #103
015a wrote: post #28

> "Teams could soon be a digital platform as important as the internet browser." - Satya Nadella Every person reading this should be scared, because he's not wrong. Ever since the pandemic started, 90% of our B2B SaaS platform customers (current and prospects) have asked "do you have a Teams app". Its sudden ; it was not like this a year ago. Its an "end the conversation" question for maybe half of them, similar to h…

Out of curiosity, why were you involved in that development if Teams is so bad? I mean I'd rather wouldn't like to associate my company with such garbage. Just good old money reasons?

Customers want it, so we build it. Its mostly that simple.

I respect any company that runs itself with that attitude. That doesn't necessarily mean that I want to spend my days working on it.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#149

Post by vaduz »

twobitshifter wrote: post #145

Just a reminder that Teams at it’s core is just a web app. It’s possible to retain almost all the functionality by just visiting the teams website. If anyone is annoyed by the startup time, the snooping, or the resource usage, you can try the web app instead.

The web app comes with the same snooping (every little bit of analytics mentioned in the article is something that the Teams servers see - you are not stopping them by not using the app) and similar resource usage - though as bloated modern browsers are, it might be masked by the "shared" resource usage with other bloated web apps in the same browser.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#150

Post by varispeed »

015a wrote: post #148
varispeed wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why were you involved in that development if Teams is so bad? I mean I'd rather wouldn't like to associate my company with such garbage. Just good old money reasons?

Customers want it, so we build it. Its mostly that simple. I respect any company that runs itself with that attitude. That doesn't necessarily mean that I want to spend my days working on it.

Fair enough, probably only way I could even consider it, is when customer wanted it - but I wouldn't advertise that...
Post reply on HN