Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

rogermexico.bearblog.dev

41–50 of 391 posts

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#41
post #9

PowerPoint has a feature where it uses machine learning to suggest layout and design changes for your content. This feature most likely can be turned off, but of course it needs some data on what's on your slide to suggest changes. I hope this submission is flagged and removed. Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't mean such misrepresentation is okay.

> I hope this submission is flagged and removed. Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't mean such misrepresentation is okay.

I don't think we know the motivation of the submitter and we should not assume any motivation beyond introducing the link to the community to consider and discuss the content.

The article is very brief and seems to highlight that the designer suggestion needs to submit your slide content to make the suggestion. The question as to whether we consented suggests that we have (through the usual click through), but, to me, it is really asking something like 'do we understand the implications of our decision to consent?'.

I don't see anything being misrepresented nor do I infer there is some sort of anti-Microsoft (nor anti-anyone/anything) in the article. It does seem to suggest there is something for people to consider in that we often 'consent' without really thinking through the outcomes of what is supposed to be our willing, informed consent.

Too often we split into binary extremes when we should really take time to be thoughtful and considerate of questions being posed and where that consideration takes us and helps us to find insights and opportunities to improve ourselves. I encourage people to not automatically jump to our 'team position' (whatever that is).

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#42
post #9

PowerPoint has a feature where it uses machine learning to suggest layout and design changes for your content. This feature most likely can be turned off, but of course it needs some data on what's on your slide to suggest changes. I hope this submission is flagged and removed. Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't mean such misrepresentation is okay.

"Automatically show me design ideas" is a pretty visible option in Preferences (looking at my Mac here, can check Windows later, but I remember turning that off on my new laptop since I just never _use_ the suggestions and they came up when I was traveling and on slow Wi-Fi).

I also believe it can be managed by policy.

MS FTE here, I have no direct awareness of how the feature works and am not affiiliated with Office - but I'm sad that something meant to _help_ people (if this raises hackles, I don't want to see what the OP says about the accessibility checks) is used to bludgeon my colleagues publicly.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#44
post #14
post #5

I look forward to the day when PowerPoint is banned due to enterprise security concerns.

How about Grammarly? Or G-suite? They have access to most of the companies out there. I find it terrifying people use Grammarly and it has access to every piece of confidential word written.

Grammarly should absolutely be banned. Their privacy policy is horrible.

I'd suggest companies look into LanguageTool's "On-Premise" commercial offering or run the Java-based server themselves (with N-Grams). Is it as good as Grammarly? Nope, but it is "90%" as good and significantly more private.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When installing office, you are told in the fine print to go read: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement ... it counts. The verbiage in there is quite disturbing.

It doesn't count anywhere that is protected by GDPR.

> protected by GDPR

This is like the firewall in windows 95: nice but useless.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care that it has a feature that's the reason they're sending data off to Microsoft, I care that they're sending data off to Microsoft and it's not blatantly obvious to the user.

> The first time you try out Designer, it may ask your permission to get design ideas for you. If you want to use Designer, select Turn on. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/53c77d7b-dc40-45c2... Considering it has to be explicitly enabled and includes a privacy policy, I’m going to say it’s “blatantly obvious” to the user.

I am genuinely curious as to why the MacOS version says "The first time you try out Designer, it asks your permission to get design ideas for you." and the Windows version says "The first time you try out Designer, it may ask your permission to get design ideas for you."

Can Microsoft use some other setting in Windows as justification for bypassing the permission step?

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care that it has a feature that's the reason they're sending data off to Microsoft, I care that they're sending data off to Microsoft and it's not blatantly obvious to the user.

> The first time you try out Designer, it may ask your permission to get design ideas for you. If you want to use Designer, select Turn on. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/53c77d7b-dc40-45c2... Considering it has to be explicitly enabled and includes a privacy policy, I’m going to say it’s “blatantly obvious” to the user.

Funny, I would have read that page and said that it was blatantly not obvious what was going on except that the privacy policy call out was a red flag. I wouldn't have thought anything of it needing to be enabled, lots of features are things that you might not want enabled by default. And having a privacy policy is definitely a red flag but it still doesn't say "we're going to send the content of your slides to Microsoft for processing".

In short, I pretty strongly disagree. I think that if you had a hundred users look at that page or click through enabling the feature, and then asked afterwards how many of them thought that the feature was going to send their slides to Microsoft, at least 50 of them would be very surprised.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#48

You did consent to it, in the fine print. Unfortunately.

Not even. It’s an explicit feature that must be separately enabled, and requires Microsoft 365. > The first time you try out Designer, it may ask your permission to get design ideas for you. If you want to use Designer, select Turn on. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/53c77d7b-dc40-45c2...

Plus there are policies which allow admins to block PowerPoint Designer, as well as all Office 365 "Intelligent Services" (or "Intelligence Services", depending on your POV).

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn't be software behavior by default. Why should it be flagged?

The article has a low signal-to-noise ratio. It is just a single paragraph claim that doesn't delve into anything nor inform its audience of anything. Why shouldn't it be flagged? If this claim was posted as a HN comment without citation or further explanation it would likely get flagged, why are submissions held to a LOWER standard?

The entire blog is this one post, so that signal-to-noise ratio is... a singularity by now.
Post reply on HN