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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”

#391

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rkangel wrote: post #249
tfehring wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't understand the quote from Microsoft's statement. Canonical provides "implementation and technical support," right? But they're not allowed to use user data from Microsoft to market those services? How else would that data even be useful for Canonical's "implementation and technical support" services?

This is the full quote from MS, provided in The Register article: "Customer privacy and trust is our top priority at Microsoft. We do not sell any information to third-party companies and only share customer information with Azure Marketplace publishers when customers deploy their product, as outlined in our Terms and Conditions. Our terms with our publishers allow them to provide customers with implementation and te…

This sounds like plausible deniability to me. "We sell your details to companies whose products you're using - which would be really useful marketing information; but they say they don't use it for that, so we did what we need to."?

Microsoft being lily-white (/s) would ensure they had GDPR-like positive consent from customers that they could pass on those customers info to specific third parties...

The idea that companies keep some sort of information wall between their support and marketing departments is pretty ridiculous. MS have to be fully aware of this, surely.

So, the story is Canonical taking part in the same crap as the more overtly crap companies, and just this one agent not being clever enough to keep their leads under wraps.

GDPR obliges companies to provide information on all this parties PII has been passed to. Given cookie lists (or UBlock blocked files) are hundreds of companies long I'm surprised we're not getting reports of who is buying up all this info.

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

#392

Post by NullPrefix »

tohmasu wrote: post #377
reaperducer wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can do better™

Legal wishes to remind you that that statement always needs this accompanying statement. The word "better" does not imply a commitment towards customers and/or investors. *The word "do" should not be seen as referring to the taking of any specific course of action which may or may not yield tangible change. *The word "can" does not signify a concrete ability and is not forward-looking. *The word "We" should not be in…

Reminds of the famous Bill Clinton qoute

>It Depends on what the meaning of the word is is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0

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

#393

Post by stonesweep »

lord_erasmus wrote: post #367
stonesweep wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canonical now goes far, far (far) out of their way to hide the normal ISO installers. I mean, they try and bury them so deep that I can only find them now by googling for the name of the ISO I already have. Find your path to this page easily from the landing pages: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/foca...

What search engine are you using ? The first result when typing "ubuntu iso" in Google leads to a page where the first button is a link to a direct download. For "ubuntu server iso" it's pretty much the same, with just one extra click

We are not talking about the same thing - those first hits are the "Live" ISO not the actual installation ISO; the "Legacy" (their word) installation ISO is the 7th link down on Google for "ubuntu server iso" below the Google injected "People also ask:" with a bunch of whatever you call those things they put there (forum and mailing list links usually).

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

#394

Post by api_or_ipa »

IgorPartola wrote: post #9
autoditype wrote: post #2

I thought this was going to be a Clippy joke, but the truth was much more disturbing. Why is Microsoft sharing this level of information (from a corporate account) with third parties?

Well I think we all know why. They make money from it. The question that’s more relevant is how many of you are going to cancel your Azure accounts and move to a different host after seeing this and will it lose MS enough money to stop the practice. I’m taking bets that not enough will at 50:1 odds.

It's enough for me to have an extremely bad taste in my mouth, that goes for both Azure and Canonical. On the topic of linux distros, we do use Ubuntu, mostly because that's often the least effort distro to spin up, but the choice of distro is fairly arbitrary nowadays, especially for Ubuntu. My current employer uses AWS so the question of switching platforms probably won't arise now, but whether it's at this company, a new company, or my own side projects, you can bet the decision over which platform to use will come up, and horror stories like this aren't easily forgotten.

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

#395

Post by _underfl0w_ »

teddyh wrote: post #256
BlueTemplar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, stuff like this is why I only treat Ubuntu as a stepping stone. I even tried to install Debian while I'm still not really used to Linux, but the graphics card immediately crapped itself on boot, so it will have to wait...

> tried to install Debian […] but the graphics card immediately crapped itself on boot https://fiendish.github.io/The-Debian-Gotham-Needs/

This is kinda both hilarious and helpful. Thanks for sharing.

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

#397

Post by ralph84 »

So somebody started using software sold by a for-profit company and was surprised when that company wanted to follow-up? Is it really that hard to politely say "no thanks, I'm good"? Or just ignore the message completely? Must every annoyance in life be cause for inciting a Twitter mob?

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

#398

Post by brmgb »

jacurtis wrote: post #142
rkangel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, to me the MS statement is the most illuminating and I'm guessing that Canonical is getting some grumpy calls from Microsoft. This is the last part of the Microsoft statement: "Our terms with our publishers allow them to provide customers with implementation and technical support for their products but restricts them from using contact details for marketing purposes" Canonical then tells us that this person…

> "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." The part I find the most enlightening (ie: disturbing) is that Canonical's only regret is that the sales rep used "a poor choice of word" and they will train their salespeople better. I assume the…

I like how the vocabulary you use imply there is something highly nefarious happening here whereas it is all fairly standard direct marketing based on an exchange of data clearly highlighted in the TOS.

I don't really understand why everyone is up in arms here. In this case, Microsoft is basically a reseller. They told Canonical that they sold one of their product to a customer and Canonical reached out on LinkedIn, a professional social network. It all seems fair game to me. This is not some creepy internet tracking using dubious way to segment people. This is basic direct marketing in a B2B context.

It's all pretty tame.

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

#399

Post by floatingatoll »

jacurtis wrote: post #142
rkangel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, to me the MS statement is the most illuminating and I'm guessing that Canonical is getting some grumpy calls from Microsoft. This is the last part of the Microsoft statement: "Our terms with our publishers allow them to provide customers with implementation and technical support for their products but restricts them from using contact details for marketing purposes" Canonical then tells us that this person…

> "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." The part I find the most enlightening (ie: disturbing) is that Canonical's only regret is that the sales rep used "a poor choice of word" and they will train their salespeople better. I assume the…

For the record, while in the midst of discovering a possible breach of contract with a company the size of Microsoft, it would be very good form, from a legal perspective, not to risk further jeopardy by openly saying that you've breached your contract. While lawyers are often distasteful to HN readers, they do have immense value in these situations, and they are completely correct to say "do not admit error at this time, not until we've formally analyzed it, post-mortemed it, and resolved our contractual obligations to Microsoft". Yes, y'all may want them to self-flagellate, but I'd rather see them honor their contracts and respect their lawyers first. They already admitted that they behaved inappropriately. The rest is just icing on the cake.

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

#400

Post by db48x »

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're not really wrong, but I understand that on Azure it's explicitly framed as a marketplace where you can purchase software to run on the computers you're renting. Much of that software, however, has no monetary cost. It's simply a quick and easy way to get the correct software from the correct vendor without going through the effort of preparing the disk images yourself.
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