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German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

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Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#71

Post by admissionsguy »

xwolfi wrote: post #45
baxtr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.

Well Im european and I can tell you from the inside, it's not the same mindset at all. We dont want to grow companies, in fact we barely give a fuck at all. It s hard to understand for capitalists, and I disliked this mindset so much I moved to Hong Kong, but that s what the people vote for: they d rather have no growth and no Microsoft 365 than put their data there. People in most of Europe are truly convinced finan…

> It's not a pragmatic strategy because it ignores we re not alone.

It's worse than that, it's delusional and hypocritical. Here in Sweden people will proudly write "We are not like the Americans" on their iPhones, drive Teslas and generally base their whole lifestyles on the foundation created by the American capitalism and possible thanks to the protection of US military.

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#72

Post by viraptor »

baxtr wrote: post #40
dhdgrygev wrote: post #35

These people keep acting like they're so clever for figuring this out, yet in reality all they're doing is giving death sentences to European companies by making them unable to use industry standard products.

People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.

> Almost all big companies use M365.

I think that's a bit more nuanced. There's definitely a lot of "nobody gets fired for MS", and lots of big companies use O365 because of existing licenses. At the same time, there's lots of small companies using Google suite. There are companies relying on specialised software. There's lots of those that don't use anything beyond a simple text editor where switching is trivial.

And yeah, huge companies rely on O365, but those will get fixes that get them to compliance very soon.

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#73

Post by tommica »

firefoxkekw wrote: post #56

365 is the cloud base suite of Microsoft Office, you can still use the Microsoft Office 2021 Professional or older versions. 365 is a nice way of collaborate at work, if you are a small business is a nice product, for the big companies this is just going to be more headache for their I.T department, so now instead of relying in the Microsoft servers to allocate and store the documents, they will use any other server…

Yeah, the file storage is so messy - I still don't know if the file I saved is in SharePoint or onedrive, and that they seem to be the same but different at the same time

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#74

Post by tremon »

fhd2 wrote: post #66
dhdgrygev wrote: post #35

These people keep acting like they're so clever for figuring this out, yet in reality all they're doing is giving death sentences to European companies by making them unable to use industry standard products.

Let me fix that for you: "industry standard products" -> "monopolist's products". Microsoft spent decades aggressively lobbying European governments and companies to use their stuff. Even if this finding has any short term impact (see the other comments about this point), I find it hard to believe Microsoft wouldn't swallow the pill and simply become compliant. If not - yeah, companies who are entrenched in Microsoft…

The main problem for them is that it's not in Microsoft's power to be compliant here, as the problems are created by the US CLOUD act, not Microsoft's own policies.

The only way for Microsoft to become compliant is to carve out its European business into a separate organization (not even a subsidiary -- it could be that even a joint venture would not be enough to escape the reach of the CLOUD act).

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#75

Post by xiphias2 »

fhd2 wrote: post #66
dhdgrygev wrote: post #35

These people keep acting like they're so clever for figuring this out, yet in reality all they're doing is giving death sentences to European companies by making them unable to use industry standard products.

Let me fix that for you: "industry standard products" -> "monopolist's products". Microsoft spent decades aggressively lobbying European governments and companies to use their stuff. Even if this finding has any short term impact (see the other comments about this point), I find it hard to believe Microsoft wouldn't swallow the pill and simply become compliant. If not - yeah, companies who are entrenched in Microsoft…

It's not just about swallowing the pill: MS has a close relationship with the US government, and NSA having a backdoor to workings to all other countries is a part of US keeping its power, so it's national security critical for US (just like for EU).

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#76

Post by derekp7 »

thrwawy74 wrote: post #46
baxtr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.

I don't disagree that finding alternatives will be expensive, but I think this is the same harmful thinking we have in the US where people disagree with regulation that adds necessary protection at the cost of business. So we have a "regulation is bad" mindset. Most prominently I wish we could convince companies here to believe handling/retaining unnecessary data is like handling something radioactive. Until we convi…

Absolutes are often bad (i.e., zero tolerance). And many regulations are absolutes. It isn't enough to comply with the law as written, you have to comply with the strictest interpretation that a judge may come up with. And that may not be enough, because some court may be even more creative in their interpretation.

Also often times business like regulation, as it forces all their competitors to play on the same playing field. Which may be easy enough for established players, but is a difficult mote to cross for smaller up-and-coming organizations (regulatory capture).

Then there is the the frequent enough occurrence of conflicting regulations. For example, the EPA may require that an oil change shop store used oil above ground (underground storage can have undetected leaks). But the fire department requires below ground storage (above ground is a fire hazard). So which regulation do you violate? The one that fines you less, and the fine is a cost of doing business.

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#77

Post by api »

viraptor wrote: post #72
baxtr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.

> Almost all big companies use M365. I think that's a bit more nuanced. There's definitely a lot of "nobody gets fired for MS", and lots of big companies use O365 because of existing licenses. At the same time, there's lots of small companies using Google suite. There are companies relying on specialised software. There's lots of those that don't use anything beyond a simple text editor where switching is trivial. An…

Google suite is the absolute worst thing you can use for privacy. Every keystroke that comes near Google is data mined.

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#78

Post by [deleted] »

baxtr wrote: post #49
xwolfi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Im european and I can tell you from the inside, it's not the same mindset at all. We dont want to grow companies, in fact we barely give a fuck at all. It s hard to understand for capitalists, and I disliked this mindset so much I moved to Hong Kong, but that s what the people vote for: they d rather have no growth and no Microsoft 365 than put their data there. People in most of Europe are truly convinced finan…

I’m also European. Thanks for the insight. I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.

[deleted]

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#79

Post by baxtr »

admissionsguy wrote: post #63
baxtr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also European. Thanks for the insight. I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.

I am an European, too, and I do agree with xwolfi. Therefore "most European" is an accurate statement.

Yeah. It’s called the European way of doing stats.

Re: German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

#80

Post by calculated »

tomrod wrote: post #65
baxtr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also European. Thanks for the insight. I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.

What's funny is that many Europeans I have spoken with from across the continent have the attitude that you come to the US when you are young to make money then retire to Europe to take advantage of the social safety net. Perhaps not yoir personal opinion, but definitely one that is anecdotally common among white collar workers.

@tomrod is completely right. Here in Bulgaria people have this exact mindset. Some also might just never return.
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