Microsoft promises to be even more transparent about data it collects
Microsoft announced three improvements in regards to privacy and data collection on April 30, 2019. The steps, revealed by Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Julie Brill, on the official Microsoft Blog, are designed to "give customers increased transparency and control over their data that is used by Microsoft's major products".
The three steps, categorization of data, increased transparency, and a new biannual privacy report, address feedback of Microsoft customers in regards to privacy.
Brill notes that customers are concerned about privacy, and that they want to know more about the data that Microsoft collects and how it uses the data.
In recent months we’ve heard from customers – especially those in Europe – with questions about the data that is collected from their devices when they use our products and services.
Microsoft faced some heat, especially from European Data Protection Authorities, e.g. from the Netherlands or France, over the company's Windows 10 operating system and its collecting of data.
Tip: check out these privacy tools for Windows 10.
Categorization
Microsoft wants to categorize data that it collects in all its major products. Collected data is either categorized as required or optional. Required data is data that is necessary to operate Microsoft products and services.
Brill mentions terms of a search query, and the IP address, type and version of the device for connectivity to Microsoft cloud services and delivering security patches.
Customers may, in some instances, control if required data is collected, as they may select to use certain features, e.g. using Microsoft cloud services. New configuration options will be unveiled in the near future to give customers more control over data collection for certain features or functions according to Brill.
Optional data is non-essential data for products or services. Microsoft customers "will be able to control the collection of optional data" without affecting the use of specific features or services.
Microsoft, once again, wants to give customers control over the data collecting so that they may allow or block the collecting.
Brill mentions two examples of optional data: data about pictures embedded into Word documents to "provide better image options" and the time it takes for PowerPoint slides to appear to "improve the experience if it's slow".
Increased transparency
Microsoft plans to improve documentation in regards to privacy and transparency. The company plans to update the company's Privacy Hub and the Enterprise Trust Center with information about the data that it collects.
Customers will be able to see required and optional data for major Microsoft products. Explanations and descriptions will be provided to help customers understand why data is required or optional.
We’ll improve upon our existing documentation practices, to describe what we collect in these two categories, in ways that are easy to understand, and to explain why data in the required category is necessary.
Biannual privacy report
Microsoft will publish a biannual privacy report that highlights new required data that Microsoft began to collect and data that Microsoft no longer collects.
The report will be published on Microsoft's Privacy website.
This report will highlight any new required data collection we believe is fundamental to provide, secure, update or maintain the performance of our products. We will also note instances when we stop collecting certain types of data from devices (because product or service changes mean the data is no longer required). Last, we will explain when we make changes to our data collection in response to new privacy laws, industry standards and regulations.
Closing Words
The changes will roll out in the coming months. Categorization will focus on Windows 10 and Office365 ProPlus first; other Microsoft products, Xbox and Dynamics 365 are mentioned specifically, will follow at a later point in time.
Are these articles AI generated?
Now the duplicates are more obvious.
This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.
Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro
Why oh why?
Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?
Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.
Special event by they is a special crap for us.
If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
Better brands at better prices elsewhere.
All new articles have zero count comments. :S
WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage
I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one
Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.
What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?
Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.
I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.
And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?
Nope, just charge the customer twice.
Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.
When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?
Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.
For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
unquote
so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.
>”Now You: what is your theory?”
That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.
Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.
Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.
The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.