You forgot to say why Google would be a bigger threat than Microsoft, which is annoying given the person you are responding to clearly listed the reasons why Microsoft is actually collecting more informations than Google.
Also, Microsoft has a much worse historical record than Google regarding protecting their users. For instance, at a time when Microsoft was happyly complying to every rules required to be allowed to do business in China, Google decided to not comply and close its offices in that country, all in the name of privacy.
So yes, bashing Google in the comment section of an article about Microsoft Edge misbehavior certainly sounds like the whims of fashion, if not of organised business propaganda.
> You forgot to say why Google would be a bigger threat than Microsoft
Microsoft wants you to use their spreadsheet software.
Google is a significant gatekeeper to information which influences what we know and the opinions we form. And that information is increasingly first party, e.g. YouTube, the Play Store.
No. Microsoft wants to control corporate and government identity, client compute and server compute.
Google is mostly about the consumer.
Between Linked-In and O365, they have the ability to target their B2B marketing or facilitate surveillance more than any other organization on the planet. Google knows all sorts of things about me, but Microsoft knows who the government official handling a critical matter is, knows who their secretary is, and knows who the lobbyists, applications or service providers.
Google may be evil, but Microsoft isn't some white knight. They are hard competitors well placed to unseat traditional enterprise players.
It seems you can’t say anything on the internet without someone interpreting it with rigid binary thinking. Fine then. Microsoft isn’t great either. Google does some good things. News at eleven.
> Microsoft wants you to use their spreadsheet software.
... and windows OS, visual studio, sql server, azure, linkedin, github, bing, skype, etc which all collects data on you. Also, I love that you dismissed their office suite as just "spreadsheet software". It's only the world's ubiquitous office suite used everywhere in the world.
The idea behind that comment seems to have been: "MS has a known motive: they want to sell you software and make money. This is a business model I understand, and can deal with being on the other end of." The same argument is used in iOS vs Android debates: why isn't it the same shit, different smell? Because Apple sells you hardware, and Google sells You.
The glib terseness of the comment is a metaphor for the relative harmlessness of the business model. Not indicative of the actual product selection or annual revenue.
It’s not so much that Microsoft or Apple’s business model is harmless—I certainly wouldn’t describe them that way—but their business models and their forms of influence are comprehended by most people.
> MS has a known motive: they want to sell you software and make money.
And the idea behind my comment was : They also want to sell you. Bing, linkedin, github, etc aren't selling you software. Also, windows OS has ads now.
Only those shopping malls and cinema chains that get you to sign up for something and get your info and have tracking capability. What do you think AMC Stubs A-List program is about?
Apple is worse than AMC or shopping malls since they have much more identifiable data on you ( even more than google in many respects ) and use that to sell you. Not just your data but recommendations/etc.
Apple sells you in the same way google/facebook/microsoft/etc sells you. Collectively and individually.
In the past shopping malls and cinemas used to sell you collectively to retail stores and movie studios. Now many of them can sell you individually to retail stores and movie studios. Something really has gone wrong when there is support for Apple on a tech forum. Usually apple just preys upon non-tech people who like overpriced shiny things. It's strange the amount of "support" apple and microsoft gets nowadays.
Oh, I didn't realise you're just spinning conspiracy theories. If any of that were true, we'd know about it. There would be leaks from employees of the companies who are receiving this data from Apple.
> Also, Microsoft has a much worse historical record than Google regarding protecting their users.
Google literally forces you into ad transactions. Their entire business model is based around coercing users into giving up their attention to businesses without your consent. This includes critical services such as youtube premium which is $15(!) to just remove the fucking ads. They don’t even offer this for their other services. So no, I can trust google as far as I can throw them.
Microsoft will make tons of money without spying on users and setting up "anonymous" profiles of peoples personal tastes, behavior, buying patterns, and other personal information. Google will make significantly less money if they don't spy on users. Its not about Google, its the domain itself. Advertising is a scummy business. Google brags about their advertising targeting capabilities, which simply cannot exist without spying on users. It beats me why anyone would think an advertising company would be pro-privacy. Their goal is to setup a toll booth on the internet by inserting themselves between the user and the content they want to actually get to. I'm waiting for Google to buy all the display companies and show a perma ad-box on the monitor itself. (haha.. I hope I didn't give t hem any ideas.. maybe I shouldn't even be making the joke.. :P )
>Microsoft will make tons of money without spying on users,
and they will make even more money by spying on users and selling that data. EvilCorp is not known for leaving money on the table. Google chooses to give away their products to lure people into using them. M$ has the luxury of having the users pay money for their products while also giving up the same data.
Also, Microsoft has a much worse historical record than Google regarding protecting their users. For instance, at a time when Microsoft was happyly complying to every rules required to be allowed to do business in China, Google decided to not comply and close its offices in that country, all in the name of privacy.
So yes, bashing Google in the comment section of an article about Microsoft Edge misbehavior certainly sounds like the whims of fashion, if not of organised business propaganda.
edit: beating Android keyboard to oblivion