Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Derik — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:18:17 GMT

@Tony - Tony, how soon you forget that Microsoft is constantly under review by the EU for privacy and anti-trust. Remember the whole "embedding IE fiasco"? Trust me, you will have to deal with it again very soon...

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Tony Tai - MSFT — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 21:09:21 GMT

@Derik: Office 365 is very clear on its privacy policy (http://bit.ly/KpriGW). It is interesting that you try to defend Google’s privacy practice when it is a known fact that Google is under EU and Antitrust reviews.

@Joseph: You have misinterpreted the scan for SPAM content. Office 365 does scan for anti-virus and anti-spam protection, as it should. Customers’ data belongs to customers. Check out Office 365 policies and the ways that you can retain your data: (http://bit.ly/L5jRHD).

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Joseph — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:50:14 GMT

Hi Tony,

I have two quick questions regarding your previous statement.

If you don't scan emails to improve the service how do you handle SPAM?

Can you point me to online documentation on how to port my data out of Office 365 and Sharepoint?

Thanks,

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Derik — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:12:09 GMT

@Tony, Interesting though that the only way Microsoft communicates data requests is through the Office 365 Administrator panel, and only if you click the box to subscribe to such requests. Who do those requests go to? The IT guy, not the proper customer Legal teams that would need to know. I would also be careful when you say that you don't "mingle" with customer data as it clearly states in your TOS that either Microsoft, or a Partner, may move a customer's data at any time; and again, the only notification is if the customer subscribes to this in the Administrative panel. Further, you also do mine customer data; read your own "Who can access your data" information, I especially like the part that states Microsoft Marketing can access a customer's address book "...for marketing purposes" www.microsoft.com/.../v2

And you need to be clear, Google does not mine or advertise to Apps for Business, EDU, Gov't, etc. customers; the only users that see adds are the free Google users; it's the same as Microsoft running adds in Live/Hotmail or in Bing.

As for data portability, Microsoft isn't really very friendly here; for example, how do I get my data out of SharePoint without using 3rd party tools? Google has an entire team dedicated to data portability with their Data Liberation project: http://www.dataliberation.org/ Users, or customers, own their data and can take it with them anytime they want to...

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Tony Tai - MSFT — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 00:32:40 GMT

@Derik: Microsoft is very public about the need for privacy.

Yes, of course Microsoft complies with local laws. In fact, ZDnet (http://zd.net/iZ9r6Q) cited:

“If a governmental entity approaches Microsoft Online Services directly for information hosted on behalf of our customers, [Microsoft] will try in the first instance to redirect the entity to the customer to afford it the opportunity to determine how to respond…and will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify the enterprise customer in advance of any production unless legally prohibited.”… “I must say, a personal and heartfelt congratulations to Microsoft — in full sincerity — for being as open, honest and transparent in their documentation.”

According to CIO.com news on Friday, Microsoft Does the Right Thing with Default “Do Not Track” for the desktop. (http://bit.ly/KKjxOq)

In the cloud, not only does Microsoft communicate regularly about privacy (http://bit.ly/xwqtQd), and summarize its practices (http://bit.ly/Evtqa), it demonstrates leadership in privacy (http://bit.ly/xNQ8Wm). Microsoft’s cloud privacy practices for its productivity service (http://bit.ly/Lj6KxG) are:

1. No Advertising: Office 365 does not build advertising products out of customer data. We don’t scan your email or documents for building analytics, data mining, advertising, or improving the service.

2. No Mingling: Office 365 always allows you to keep your customer data separate from consumer services.

3. Data Portability: Office 365 Customer data belongs to the customer. Customers can remove their data whenever they choose to.

The net-net is not to worry. It’s about protections on mining, mingling and moving data. If you are housing your business data in Microsoft’s Office 365 service, your email and documents won’t be mined, or mingled with who-knows-who’s data, or prevented from your removal. Our customers’ data privacy needs come first.

re: Is Google Protecting Your Privacy?

Derik — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:53:46 GMT

Yeah, Microsoft really has your back...

lifehacker.com/.../these-are-the-companies-that-protect-your-data-from-the-government-and-the-ones-that-dont