It's terribly ironic, considering the video they "leaked" a couple years ago lambasting Gmail for reading your email. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x4_dozWkq0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x4_dozWkq0</a>
(I work for Microsoft, though not for Outlook.com)<p>Can we stop with the hyperboles and actually be realistic?<p>Quitting the use of Microsoft services won't really solve anything since, as has been made clear in other HN threads, the policies of other big players allow for the same (e.g. Gmail).<p>Arguing that "oh but Gmail hasn't actually proven they'll use this tactic" is absolutely absurd. They're saying they can, so nothing stops them from doing it tomorrow. If they really wouldn't ever do so then that clause would not be on any terms that users agree to. Ditto for all other major email providers.<p>Okay, so next we can say "aha! I'll just stand up my own email service!". Two reality checks...<p>--First: if you email anyone using a major email provider then you haven't really made much progress. Same even if they email you <i>and you ignore them</i>.<p>--Second: it seems completely unrealistic that this solution would scale to the entire world. NSA fiasco has proven to me that people value convenience more than privacy. Otherwise this "stand up your own email/cloud" trend would have started last summer. None of my friends (even tech friends) have switched away from gmail or whatever major provider they use.<p>This situation obviously sucks, but I don't see many reasonable responses to this. We're smart people here. Let's act like it.
<i>> From the company's point of view, desperate times call for desperate measures.</i><p>So they're saying "the end justifies the means".<p>I'm saying: <i>no, stop and don't</i>.<p>Stop using any Microsoft services (don't forget skype) and better yet any of their products.
i'm genuinely curious.<p>how is that different from gmails privacy policy? do we know anything about googles behavior with law enforcement wrt gmail? even if gmails eula technically allows them to "read"/index all you have in your inbox, does that really legally allow searching for a specific thing? what if there are nlp based triggers?<p>also while the article deems this ironic:<p>> In a move that might be deemed ironic, Microsoft will now add its own internal searches to its biannual transparency reports on government surveillance. To top of page<p>i actually think it's a good idea. does google have anything like this? the real irony is that it reminds me of chinas quarterly human rights report on the united states.<p>that said i use gmail in spite of hotmail.<p>by the way, if you want a simple to setup email server, you can use atmail in a kvm. there's a whole host of free solutions, but for those who don't want to fiddle with mail configurations it's worth the 20 bucks<p><a href="https://atmail.com/" rel="nofollow">https://atmail.com/</a>
I used to host email for a co-op I'm involved in, and I eventually decided I didn't want to anymore. I don't recall deliberately reading any, but having my friends' personal messages sitting on my server in plain text format just seemed weird and icky and wrong.<p>I'm sure people will object to this opinion, but I don't think it's reasonable to send your messages to a third party's server in a <i>totally</i> open, unobscured format and consider those messages private. I just can't really see the situation any other way. If you're going to do that, your only reasonable expectation of "privacy" is hoping that the server's admins aren't sufficiently interested in your messages to pay any attention to them.
So in "exceptional circumstances" - such as where your email is perceived to have content which may conflict with Microsoft's commercial interests - they will read your documents without court approval, and stress that their standard terms and conditions permit them to do so as your cloud-based email accounts are "their own property"<p>I find it hard to believe the commercial value of the IP allegedly being sold exceeds that of the commercial value of the "cloud" enterprise deals Microsoft is jeopardising here...<p>Then again, an article in the sidebar points out that the other big players also reserve the right to do this:
<a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/03/23/apple-icloud-email-kibkalo/?iid=s_tech_mid" rel="nofollow">http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/03/23/apple-icloud-email-ki...</a>
It seems to me that MS had every right to chase down this pair of nincompoops. Technically they had the right to scan the unnamed blogger's email, and surely they had the right and justification to check ex-employee Kibkalo's Skydrive account for traces of illegally obtained files.<p>Maybe there should be some kind of more normal procedure such as a court order rather than merely the "approval of Microsoft's lawyers", but either way they had justification. The blogger had obtained keys to a new server release and potentially he or his customers could use it to create highly insecure or spoofed installations, could they not?<p>Methinks the world is a safer place now that the leaker was caught.<p>By the way what's Microsoft doing employing some Russian guy living in Lebanon, anyway? The whole situation sounds a bit iffy.
From the article: "Microsoft admitted in federal court documents that it forced its way into a blogger's Hotmail account to track down and stop a potentially catastrophic leak of sensitive software. The company says its decision is justified."
The telephone company does not have a right to listen to your phone calls. I know as there are lots of rules for line technicians when someone is on the line while they are working on it. So why is this true of email? Because of a EULA? You cannot sign away your rights, EULA or otherwise. That's why they are called rights.
Email is not secure unless you and the recipient have carefully used encryption.<p>This has been true ever since email was invented.<p>It doesn't matter what the TOS /AUP is - that doesn't stop rogue employees creeping trough email. It doesn't matter if they advertise it as a secure sevice or if they use their competitor's advert serving in ads.<p>We can use words like "wrong", "unethical", "illegal" but that does nothing to make email more secure.<p>Stop giving your secrets to a 3rd party and being surprised when they know your secrets.
These tech companies have to grow up. They are consumer companies now. Just because you can do something does not mean you do it. The CEO should have made the call that some tech secrets are not worth the press and upset users.
I understand that it's not that simple, but having this guy shut up was not worth it.
And I want companies to value their customers more than some piece of code.
Perhaps microsoft would be on stronger ground if they had consulted an outside authority before deciding they had the right to look at their own data. Instead they simply decided on their own. It's like the police issuing themselves a search warrant — doesn't matter how correct the reasoning is, it's procedurally unacceptable.
So let's go back to the pre-electrified area.<p>You send a letter to a friend with sensible information. The letter is transported by the post office from door to door. While in transit, the post office recognizes, from a 3rd party, that a letter exists, that contains sensible information about the post-office's business. Therefore the CEO of that company demands a internal investigation, which searches for a letter with the given senders/recipients address and then opens it.<p>IANAL, but at least where I come from, there exist laws that acknowledge the intimacy and privacy of these letters and would sentence this behavior.<p>So why on earth is everyone talking about policy, terms of service, the lack of alternatives a.s.o? Nobody sees the desperate need of legislation here?
Very few people got upset when email providers started including clauses to let them do this. There was some mild backlash when gmail started automating ad delivery via email content but then people went crazy over the 1GB mailbox and forgot all about it. The lesson being that peoples greed far exceeds any sense of adherence to privacy principles. Google has used that lesson effectively to essentially turn Chrome into a key-logger.<p>If you allow a bomb to be placed in your house its not surprising that once in a while its going to go off.<p>To be harsh, <i>I</i> haven't learnt anything either. I use the ms live crap (only because of office 365) and gmail too.
I wonder if this will effect their "gmail man" marketing? you know, the one where they blast goog for probing in your email...<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMbQCom7VTY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMbQCom7VTY</a>
Microsoft was wrong, and is tacitly admitting it even as they ostensibly claim the opposite.<p>That said, their stated justifications probably suffice to get this categorized as a "forgivable error".
There should be a technical solution to this problem. Emails should be saved encrypted on microsoft servers and microsoft should not have the key to decrypt them.
it's funny that microsoft aired this ad not long ago: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63u-RG-31B0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63u-RG-31B0</a>