“Microsoft steals access data” – When the well-known German IT portal “Heise Online” uses such drastic words in its headline, then something is up. If Microsoft has its way, all Windows users will have to switch to the latest version of Microsoft Outlook. But: Not only can the IMAP and SMTP access data of your e-mail account be transferred to Microsoft, but all e-mails in the INBOX can also be copied to the Microsoft servers, even if you have your mailbox with a completely different provider such as mailbox.org.
They’re going to use it for AI, I’m assuming. In any event, don’t use the new Outlook – it’s a web app anyway and there’s better clients for Windows. I think. I’m not sure people are still developing e-mail clients for Windows.
The enshittification of everything Microsoft touches continues. Use a Microsoft product and watch your privacy disappear for the sake of Microsoft profits.
At what point do civilized beings say “Enough!”?
NEVER if convenience is at stake. People will sell anything if they are granted a boon.
This is a low even for Microsoft standards. (Though to be fair, there seems to be two heads moving in different directions. One embraces Linux, open source and common protocols, while the other tries to milk more people using Windows).
Anyway, thanks for the heads up. There is no way, I would be willing to share my emails with another provider.
(And as a reminder, they will also upload your WiFi password in case you need to setup a new device, this is also done by other manufacturers as well).
sukru,
Microsoft just wants a piece of the linux action because they’ve lost so much internet market share to it in previous decades. But who’s to say an exec wouldn’t start adding similar anti features to WSL at some point in the future.
Do you know if windows prompts for that or do they do it without telling owners about it? For better or worse, internet connected services have been developed to give the service providers access to our raw unencrypted data including passwords rather than encrypting it. Regardless of what company is doing it, the only thing stopping them from mining our data once it reaches their servers unencrypted is a promise not to. Additionally there is nothing stopping them from conducting surveillance in secret on behalf of governments.
Alfman,
Even though I cannot read intentions, but only look at past behavior; yes, I have seen “management” damage company culture, and do short sighted moves at the expense of long term value. So, there is always a risk.
The consent location changes every version or even between updates, so I can’t exactly tell where. But this is part of their account sync on the cloud.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/backup-transfer-wifi-passwords-windows/
Well yeah. I’ve been pointing this out to people since the whole New Outlook thing was first on the table. Microsoft is hosting your mail app, and you’re just getting a web based UI to it presented via the app. Microsoft has your mail data, your creds/tokens, and if your Microsoft account gets suspended then you lose access to a basic core OS function (mail access, which is an ‘Inbox App’) which shouldn’t itself require Microsoft’s assistance to use.
There’s little to stop Microsoft misusing that data, whether for advertising or AI or government collusion.
> it’s a web app anyway and there’s better clients for Windows. I think. I’m not sure people are still developing e-mail clients for Windows.
Thunderbird?
It has gone all fancy this year with a full ui rewrite.
If you trust Microsoft, this is not a big deal. If you don’t trust Microsoft, why are you using Outlook?
Personally, I trust Microsoft, I worked there for 20 years, and I found Napoleon’s Razor to be apropos: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”.
I don’t use Outlook, but for different reasons – it’s top heavy, overly complex and overkill for personal email. I use GMail. I assume you don’t trust Google either. Neither do I, but there’s also nothing in my email except ads anyway. Occasionally, my sister lets me know that she’s still living and happy in Mexico.
I grew up in the 60’s, and us hippies never trusted corporations any further than we could spit. But at some point you have to either compromise or go live in a cave.
darkoverlordofdata,
It is ironic that you say you don’t trust google and yet you still choose to use them immediately after asking why people would use an email client from a company they don’t trust. Anyway, “trust” is a huge umbrella term that doesn’t fully describe the problems with privacy. It isn’t just about trusting said companies with our data, but also the fact that these companies are providing solutions that compromise privacy in the first place. Just because I might “trust” a company in no way suggests that I am in favor of them needlessly having access to all my private information!
I get what you are saying, but in this instance it overlooks the rather fundamental shift in control that is taking place. In decades past people could run software including outlook locally; and they weren’t living in caves. Now that more software is being developed to run on someone else’s computers outside of a user’s reach, the nature of privacy and what consumers are able to keep private totally changes. Obviously corporations are doing this for themselves, but it is legitimate to question whether this is actually what’s best for society at large.
For better or worse, centralization amplifies the reach of authoritarian governments, potentially even posing risks to democracy itself. And while those of us in the west assume this is just a problem “elsewhere”, authoritarianism is on the rise right here in the US. There’s a lot going on right now and our privacy is in the crosshairs.
https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-reporter-ordered-reveal-anonymous-source-yanping-chen/
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2022-05-19/out-of-state-bans-threaten-to-extend-the-reach-of-anti-abortion-america-but-some-states-are-preparing
I know this goes well beyond the profit motives of microsoft/google/etc, but it is important that we stay on top of how increasingly centralized computing can be abused long term.
There’s a difference between using Outlook as a local, native desktop application working with your own data on your own machine, and communicating from your computer with servers you designate, versus doing all that as a service within a remote environment, and just getting a UI presented via HTML to your computer.
I (mostly) trust Microsoft to write a mail client app. I trust them to host specific company mail accounts under tighter paid ToS conditions. I don’t trust Microsoft to store and process and lock up my mail and credentials for third party services like GMail or Yahoo or a personal mailserver, on both malice and incompetence grounds.
The contents of your emails isn’t the point. The privacy issue is NOT based on whether or not you have something to hide, but rather whether or not Would you allow strangers into your home to case the place even if you didn’t have anything you deemed valuable in it?
Ok, not sure why that other reply posted since I was still typing it, and not sure why I have no option to edit it. Oh well…..
The contents of your emails isn’t the point. The privacy issue is NOT based on whether or not you have something to hide, but rather how far anything/anyone should have reach into your life, and whether you should have any privacy at all. Would you allow strangers into your home to case the place even if you didn’t have anything you deemed valuable in it? These companies have well-defined track records of abusing their positions of power and their users for their own profit & gain.
It’s easy to strip peoples right away when they’re fooled into consenting to it.