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“I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

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Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#191

Post by moron4hire »

inetknght wrote: post #47
rkangel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first response as well (it's not the data sharing that's the problem, it's that you noticed). Thinking about it though, a lot of it is a question of surprise and unknowns. I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image that Canonical provide in the Azure Marketplace. I am available to you for (etc.)".

> * I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image* No. That's not better at all. The mere fact that Canonical has specific information to reach me when I am not a direct customer of Canonical is a complete violation of my privacy. Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or…

It's not "free as in lying around on the ground", it's free as in "freedom". You have to agree to Canonical's "Terms of Service" to use Ubuntu, so you are a licensed customer of Canonical's.

In this case, the license is the GPL, none of which has anything to say about privacy. Maybe this is a failure of the Free Software Foundation's to not include privacy protection in the GPL. Though even if they were to create a GPLv4, the Linux Kernel is still only licensed under v2, so distro implementors have no obligation to use a more restrictive license.

AKA, "the cat is already out of the bag".

In the OP's case, they additionally are are customer of Microsoft's, who explicitly stated they share this kind of information with their vendors.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#192

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

inetknght wrote: post #82
db48x wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A free copy of Ubuntu, packaged specifically for use on Azure.

That's not a purchase. Every dictionary I've read has described a purchase to include transferring money and ownership. Starting a VM isn't a purchase of Ubuntu. It's a rental of compute, storage, and network resources. Any other definition is, quite simply, wrong.

You need a better dictionary, or to stop making things up. The Oxford Dictionary, for example, defines purchase as merely "acquiring something".

Legally, freedom of contract means the specifics of what is to be exchanged in a purchase are more or less unlimited.

Even colloquially, many purchases happen without "money" changing hands. Paying with a voucher, for example, would seem to be a form of payment that doesn’t involve actual money.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#193

Post by daveFNbuck »

jacurtis wrote: post #183
daveFNbuck wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an attempt to scapegoat would look more like "in violation of our established policies and rigorous training, a Canonical Sales Representative contacted one of these developers via LinkedIn." The actual quote acknowledges that the company's training and policies are at fault. I'd also expect a scapegoat to be publicly fired or disciplined, did they say that elsewhere?

> "On February 10th, a new Canonical Sales Representative contacted one of these developers via LinkedIn, with a poor choice of word. In light of this incident, Canonical will be reviewing its sales training and policies." This was their official statement regarding this matter. They provided this to The Register to defend their actions when this story got written up: https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/11/microsoft_…

The only blame they gave him was that he had a poor choice of words. They're not saying he went against training or policy. They're not saying that he's being disciplined or fired.

Canonical said that they need to review their policies. To me, this implies that what he did was not against policy.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#195

Post by aeturnum »

BlueTie wrote: post #40

As someone who works in tech sales - the real bullshit here is that this is some right-out-of-college 22 y/o entry level sales person (SDR) who was likely told to to take this list and message everyone on linkedin 1x1. The negative impact of this goes on his shoulders where the positive responses from this get passed off to someone else who is outside the blast radius. Stuff like this is the norm when sales is viewed…

This reminds of of a 2019 paper on "moral crumple zones"[1] which talks about how the human component of automated systems are increasingly there to act as the focus for moral failures. Did your giant automated system do something bad? Blame the one human who was assigned to somehow stop that from happening, no matter how impossible that might be.

[1] https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#196

Post by that_guy_iain »

hobofan wrote: post #104
scoutt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be also that the sales person did this on his own initiative for a couple of extra points. It might not be standard practice, but we'll never know.

If a random sales person can easily go ahead and access PII on their own initiative, that's 1000x worse.

Your PII will be in their CRM and they will have access to their CRM. Literally all they need to do this is your name and linkedin. If you think sales people won't have access to names of potential leads then I am not sure what you think sales people do on outbound sales.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#197

Post by moron4hire »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #120
kube-system wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is gratis. Although, partnership deals tend to go beyond simply sharing code, and into the realm of dedicating time and resources to working with each other.

The code is more than just gratis; it's libre . This is Ubuntu, based on Debian GNU/Linux. (Yeah, okay, some of the code is merely gratis, but most of it is libre.) I don't expect an OS based on an OS based on an OS based on a half-finished OS based on free software principles to have shady data-dealing attached, yet hidden from the people whose data is being dealt.

You might not have expected it, but privacy protection is not any sort of obligation encoded in any extant concept of Free Software.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#198

Post by plorg »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #168
plorg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want them to stop sending me nuisance mail whether or not the contract is enforceable.

Did canceling stop it? They still have your contact information and they still know you have a satellite radio in your car.

I still received mail sent before I cancelled, I received a piece of mail acknowledging a cancellation and offering a new, discounted subscription. I believe I received at least one more piece of mail.

To be clear, I do not think any of my efforts will get my contact info out of their databases. Auto purchases are recorded publicly (at least in my state).

My comment above was about the extent to which Sirius, as a company, puts up hurdles to protect their nuisance practices, including shrouding them with legal claims that they will defend at the highest levels of jurisprudence. They lost their case in 2014 and updated the language in their agreement, presumably to address the weakness of their previous agreement, since it still claims to bind the customer without any action on their part.

In any case, I do not want to derail this thread any further.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#199

Post by donarb »

inetknght wrote: post #82
db48x wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A free copy of Ubuntu, packaged specifically for use on Azure.

That's not a purchase. Every dictionary I've read has described a purchase to include transferring money and ownership. Starting a VM isn't a purchase of Ubuntu. It's a rental of compute, storage, and network resources. Any other definition is, quite simply, wrong.

It's essentially a subscription, sometimes for a price, sometimes not. And it's more than just a Ubuntu distro, it's an Azure image that also contains code allowing the distro to run in Azure's system. Much like an AMI at Amazon.

Anyone can bypass the marketplace by creating their own machine images, it's not too difficult.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#200

Post by that_guy_iain »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #105
jnwatson wrote: post #69

I'm super confused as to why anybody thinks this is a problem. Generally, when one "buys" something from a "marketplace" the vendor gets to know who the buyer is. That the vendor asks the buyer if there's anything else they'd want to buy is par for the course.

If the email came over an Azure customer support system, or even to the corporate email used to sign up for the Azure account, then sure - I would personally find this very obnoxious and it being buried in the license agreement is suspicious, but not really that unethical. Crucially, this arrangement means Canonical could engage in marketing without MSFT sharing much personal data about Azure users. What's extremely…

> What's extremely unethical is contacting the person over LinkedIn.

Umm the point of linkedin is to make professional contacts and a professional network.

> But it would be completely unacceptable if a sales representative showed up at my house (despite me only sharing my address for billing/shipping purposes). This is basically what happened to the Azure customer.

This would be like the sales rep turning up at your office during office hours and leaving a card for you.

The person used a corporate account and the person was contacted via a method used to contact people about professional matters.

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