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I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

zdnet.com

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Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#81

Post by pragmatick »

npteljes wrote: post #70
arpyzo wrote: post #5

I personally find Teams to be an abomination. I asked my wife the other day, who isn't familiar with Slack or Teams, to look at the interfaces and tell me how to IM an individual. She glanced at Slack and pointed to the list of users. She looked at Teams and said "I have no idea". Slack practically invites me to reach out to people. Teams OTOH makes me want to send an email. Now you can add this tracking to the list…

So maybe Teams has a higher barrier of entry. I don't think that it's worse because of this particular reason.

I've never used Slack but the usability of Teams is awful. So much empty space, empty context menus, usually only one way to get anywhere. Notifications for a user can only be disabled by context menu, clicking away a notification doesn't mark the message as read, all settings are on a profile basis (no way to disable notifications for mobile only), there's no way to just stop Teams on mobile without having to sign out. The chat input editor is horrible when it comes to writing / pasting code.

Video chat and calendar integration work great, though.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#82

Post by alpaca128 »

sriku wrote: post #51
gnicholas wrote: post #47

I can't believe how aggressive Teams is at inserting itself in my login items (on a Mac). At first, I thought it just happened when I installed the application. But nope — any time I open Teams, it will re-insert itself in my list of login items. This happens no matter how many times I have manually removed it. I think it even happens more than once per launch because I recently launched it to join a call and then im…

It seems to do the equivalent of this on my ubuntu machine too.

Oh my, makes me glad I only used it in the browser so far. That kind of nuisance makes me glad VMs and containers exist.

Maybe it's possible to restrict its access via flatpak or Snap? I have a messenger via flatpak that can't access anything outside the home/Downloads folder, but I can't say whether that restriction applies to other apps as well.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#83

Post by csunbird »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #53
gnicholas wrote: post #47

I can't believe how aggressive Teams is at inserting itself in my login items (on a Mac). At first, I thought it just happened when I installed the application. But nope — any time I open Teams, it will re-insert itself in my list of login items. This happens no matter how many times I have manually removed it. I think it even happens more than once per launch because I recently launched it to join a call and then im…

apps in windows are, and have always been, more like this than mac apps. it seems like the worst offenders on mac are ports from / native residents of windows. steam does this, for example. it drives me BONKERS. at least on Mac it's kind of rare. on windows, i swear to god every single thing you install does this. razer mouse? better run at startup! weird USB peripheral you use once in a blue moon? better run at star…

I feel like steam is a good citizen in this regard. I had no problem with it starting at startup/login after I asked it not to do that.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#84

Post by 2rsf »

syspec wrote: post #44
prepend wrote: post #6

I remember when I first started working and was surprised to learn that email admins could and would read email. When I asked HR for their policy on this they said they had none and the company can do anything they want with employee activity. This was the 90s and was true then as it is now. Same for the MITM ssl proxy stuff. This has always been legal and recorded, Microsoft just makes it easier. And I think maybe e…

> This just makes me choose my employers more carefully as while they certainly have this data to abuse, fortunately few do not. I think the issue with this approach, which is one that I completely agree with, applaud, and also adhere to is that many people are not as fortunate to be in such a position to turn down employment opportunities. Those are the people who need protection from "features" such as these, becau…

AFAIK legislators in most countries do not agree that this protection is needed.

Employers are not allowed to track you in your private time, in the toilets or putting a camera under you chair, but it is perfectly fine to track your usage of the company's resources and adherence to regulations.

We software engineers are a spoiled kind of employee, but in most traditional work places your time and actions are tracked

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#85

Post by 2rsf »

grecy wrote: post #8
prepend wrote: post #6

I remember when I first started working and was surprised to learn that email admins could and would read email. When I asked HR for their policy on this they said they had none and the company can do anything they want with employee activity. This was the 90s and was true then as it is now. Same for the MITM ssl proxy stuff. This has always been legal and recorded, Microsoft just makes it easier. And I think maybe e…

> Same for the MITM ssl proxy stuff. If I logon to my personal banking website while at work, and my employer MITM's that connection to snoop, have they genuinely not broken any law?

Obviously it depends on what country you are in, but in a few examples I know of it is perfectly legal for them to do that.

You don't want to be tracked ? use you own device and network.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#86

Post by lifty »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #53
gnicholas wrote: post #47

I can't believe how aggressive Teams is at inserting itself in my login items (on a Mac). At first, I thought it just happened when I installed the application. But nope — any time I open Teams, it will re-insert itself in my list of login items. This happens no matter how many times I have manually removed it. I think it even happens more than once per launch because I recently launched it to join a call and then im…

apps in windows are, and have always been, more like this than mac apps. it seems like the worst offenders on mac are ports from / native residents of windows. steam does this, for example. it drives me BONKERS. at least on Mac it's kind of rare. on windows, i swear to god every single thing you install does this. razer mouse? better run at startup! weird USB peripheral you use once in a blue moon? better run at star…

This is an abject failure of OS design. If an app is allowed by the OS to insert itself in the startup list without explicit user consent first an foremost I blame the operating system. You can’t trust every app and every developer out there. I would love if there would be a Linux distro out there that would adopt some of the principles and values embodied in iOS, without the draconian Apple walled garden.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#87

Post by [deleted] »

alpaca128 wrote: post #82
sriku wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to do the equivalent of this on my ubuntu machine too.

Oh my, makes me glad I only used it in the browser so far. That kind of nuisance makes me glad VMs and containers exist. Maybe it's possible to restrict its access via flatpak or Snap? I have a messenger via flatpak that can't access anything outside the home/Downloads folder, but I can't say whether that restriction applies to other apps as well.

[deleted]

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#88

Post by m463 »

gnicholas wrote: post #47

I can't believe how aggressive Teams is at inserting itself in my login items (on a Mac). At first, I thought it just happened when I installed the application. But nope — any time I open Teams, it will re-insert itself in my list of login items. This happens no matter how many times I have manually removed it. I think it even happens more than once per launch because I recently launched it to join a call and then im…

I think I ran into this when I first used it, and tried disabling it, but then I just uninstalled it and exclusively use the browser version.

I can't recall exactly what I did, it was a while back.

I think one way to combat things like this is to find the launch file disable it and make it unwritable.

   chflags +simmutable
Other possibilities are: zero out files and make them immutable, or make the directory for updaters unreadable.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#89

Post by jacquesm »

prepend wrote: post #6

I remember when I first started working and was surprised to learn that email admins could and would read email. When I asked HR for their policy on this they said they had none and the company can do anything they want with employee activity. This was the 90s and was true then as it is now. Same for the MITM ssl proxy stuff. This has always been legal and recorded, Microsoft just makes it easier. And I think maybe e…

Admins that read their users email without express instruction from management to dig up and review a particular email should be fired.

Re: I looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams tracks users

#90

Post by maccard »

gigel82 wrote: post #34
leipert wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s why I have personal property that the company isn’t able to access so I can conduct personal activities with some level of privacy. The problem right now is: due to Work from home, you basically have blurred the lines between the digital company and private assets. Either you have a company device; or even a personal device running this software in your private networks doing and telemetering you don’t know…

I wish there was a better solution to this. I tried creating a VM and joining that to the work "services" but HyperV, VirtualBox, etc. all add an audio delay making Teams unusable. Also tried Barrier and dedicating one monitor to work, but I still can't share/mix the audio so have 2 separate headsets. I know ideally I'd just use the work computer all the time when "working", but they're VPN-ing all traffic and I occa…

> I occasionally need to read a private email, or do some browsing and would prefer they don't see that traffic.

Low friction answer to that is a personal smartphone. Bonus points because it works in the office too!

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