With all data stored on a sharepoint or onedrive, and powerpoint running in a browser... where's the news?
Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
51–60 of 391 posts
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 and Hola VPN are the two browser extensions that any IT Admin should be ban straight away in corporate machines.
You guys allow users to install browser extensions?
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 Micro…
That is a help page guiding the user on how to use the feature. Of course it’s going to be “hidden” when turning on the feature is the smallest step to using it.
If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”. It isn’t hidden or buried under a dozen other settings when you install PowerPoint, it’s done at time of use.
How, exactly, would you want it to be more obvious? A big red box every time the feature is mentioned in the help site? Be realistic here; in terms of user consent this is perfectly fine.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Maybe there's a Group Policy setting that can automatically enable it?
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#55Obtaining user data should be a horrifying prospect for companies. They should obsessively work for alternative ways to not need it for their goals. And when they need it, to be ridiculously careful about it. (you could substitute "user data" for "application state" here)
But it's not because there aren't sufficient consequences. Memory leaks don't properly crash the company as they should.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#56I wonder what the NSA or any other of these three-letter agencies think about that, I can remember much of the leaked information consisting of Powerpoint slides.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Micro…
That is a help page guiding the user on how to use the feature. Of course it’s going to be “hidden” when turning on the feature is the smallest step to using it. If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”. It isn’t hidden or buried under a dozen other settings when you install PowerPoint, it’s done at time of use. How, exactly, wo…
> If to use the feature you are explicitly asked to turn it on, with an option to view a privacy policy, that is “blatantly obvious”.
I disagree.
> How, exactly, would you want it to be more obvious? A big red box every time the feature is mentioned in the help site?
Yes, more or less. I would be perfectly happy with a single red box at the top that says this feature sends the contents of your slide to Microsoft. I am not okay with linking to a privacy policy that nobody's going to read and pretending that that's informed consent.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is why GDPR has the concept of "informed consent", which is a fancy way of saying "consent hidden in the fine print doesn't count".
And that the user may not have capacity to consent. That seems the salient issue today with regards to children and social media. Most of the giant social media companies profit from participants who cannot legally enrol.
By "participants who cannot legally enrol," do you mean minors? I'm not tracking what the Venn diagram between those people and those who "may not have the capacity to consent" is.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#59PowerPoint 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…
If that is the feature in question, neither the app itself, nor the online help shown when clicking "About PowerPoint Designer" give any indication that your slide contents data will be sent to MS.
Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides
#60I've raised this point repeatedly in different orgs. It's met with some combination of indifference and lack of understanding and not-my-responsibility-ism, but I'm sure that this will eventually blow up hard in some company's face - like 9-digit settlement for breach of contract, or worse things like breach of export control laws. Enterprise data security on the "MS Office level" at this point is like driving 60 mph…
Yeah, I'm surprised every healthcare related business doesn't either ban PowerPoint or block this "feature" somehow. HIPAA is a hell of a drug.