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Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

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Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#41

Post by Adaptive »

Aggressive, negative advertising is the violence of the marketing world, and as Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

I don't have any problem with aggressive advertising if it's done well, creatively, thoughtfully, intelligently. This is none of those things. Creativity usually precludes aggressive negativity (not always, but usually).

I find the expectation that anyone would 'sign' such a ham fisted attempt at a populist petition, one clearly designed by a creativity starved agency to be offensive to all sentient beings online.

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#43

Post by siddhant »

Microsoft has lost it. If "scanning email" is their only concern, they're doing it too, for the purpose of "prioritizing my privacy" or whatever. I don't get it why people make a big deal out of all this. As long as private emails are not being read by real people, I doubt most people (who know what "scanning email" is) care.

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#44

Post by kevinfat »

Volpe wrote: post #34
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.

No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads. Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.

That's not a privacy issue. That's a I don't want feature X (ads) issue.

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#46

Post by junto »

junto wrote: post #32

If you login to Outlook.com (which is extremely slow btw), you'll also find the following settings page available from the bottom right cog icon: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/mydata/UserInterests Under 'My Data' it stores Bing Searches and takes guesses as to your 'Interests'. How does it do that exactly? Operationally, how different is Outlook.com a.k.a Hotmail, compared to Google? Both are free, and nothing is…

"You can also opt-out of getting personalized ads from advertising companies other than Microsoft, on the Consumer Choice page.":

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#47

Post by gtufano »

StavrosK wrote: post #16
twelvechairs wrote: post #8

Why should Google be exempt from criticism? I think its good that a big company like Microsoft is making this kind of privacy an issue.

What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.

Well, no. It's not the same thing. Scanning my content so that you make more money is different from scanning my content so that I get less spam. The second is a service. If you don't encrypt your email (almost nobody does it) every server serving your email can access the email text. The point is what they do with it. If they use it to make something useful for me (allowing me to read email) that's OK. Targeting ads is, as a minimum, borderline...

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#48

Post by gavinflud »

Volpe wrote: post #34
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.

No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads. Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.

Unfortunately for you, you can't pick and choose what you want when Google are providing you with a free email service. Generating personalized ads is how they make money from this venture.

As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#49

Post by lvh »

gavinflud wrote: post #48
Volpe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads. Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.

Unfortunately for you, you can't pick and choose what you want when Google are providing you with a free email service. Generating personalized ads is how they make money from this venture. As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."

Actually, you can. Despite what the website says, you can opt out of personalized advertising:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...

Re: Aggressive negative advertising by Microsoft against Google.

#50

Post by StavrosK »

gtufano wrote: post #47
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.

Well, no. It's not the same thing. Scanning my content so that you make more money is different from scanning my content so that I get less spam. The second is a service. If you don't encrypt your email (almost nobody does it) every server serving your email can access the email text. The point is what they do with it. If they use it to make something useful for me (allowing me to read email) that's OK. Targeting ads…

You knew this when you signed up. Plus, it's not a privacy issue. No human is sitting there, reading your emails. How is the spam algorithm reading your emails fine from a privacy standpoint while the ads algorithm isn't?
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