Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Censorship Worse Than China's and Microsoft's Online Services Exceptionally Privacy-Infringing

So who's "Scroogled" now? Worse than China...

China



Summary: Microsoft manages to be even more user-hostile than the Chinese counterparts and Microsoft staff is abusing access to people's data

Microsoft has a so-called 'decision engine' it calls Bing, which was widely accused (with evidence) of censoring GNU/Linux and FOSS when it was first announced (the brand, not the service). Microsoft does not claim to be delivering results based on objective analysis; Microsoft is making editorial decisions, which is a recipe for trouble. Microsoft also scrapes Google search results, censors.blocks links, and does other very unethical -- if not illegal -- things. But a tyrant would like that. Since whatever people search for is passed to Microsoft's friends at the NSA, it should be so shocking that all this stuff is allowed to happen, sometimes even encouraged.



Now, according to new reports, Microsoft's decisions in China are more strict and severe than China's. To quote one article: "Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Bing search engine is under attack, once again, over the Chinese censorship issue. Chinese web monitoring firm GreatFire has raised objections over the way Bing shows search results in China. GreatFire found that Microsoft’s search engine censors heavily in the world’s most populous country, even more than Chinese company Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU)."

What are the chances that Microsoft also relays search phrases to the Chinese government, not just the NSA? Almost a decade ago Microsoft came under fire for profiling users of its services in China. This has real potential for huge abuse.

Citing this other new article ("Ex-Microsoft employee charged with passing blogger trade secrets") we now know that data protection at Microsoft is a total joke. The reader who sent it to us quotes this part: "The code was later confirmed to be authentic, prompting corporate investigators to dredge the Hotmail account the blogger used to contact the Microsoft worker."

"This is big," explains the reader, because Microsoft "can and does read Hotmail / Live accounts for whatever reasons. Only fools run an account with them."

In section 3.5 of the waiver from Microsoft it says that "Microsoft reserves the right to review content".

So here we have yet more reasons to never ever host anything on Microsoft's platforms, or even use its services which are spying on users, deceiving users, and informing on the users, as we have learned from Snowden's leaks.

Microsoft is in no position to chastise Google.

Recent Techrights' Posts

4 Years Ago Freenode Crumbled From Within
there are still hundreds of thousands of users online at any given time
Microsoft Has Tainted GNOME, Which Has Key People Acting as a SLAPP Front Against Techrights (Trying to Censor the Site by Extortion and Many Threats)
One common denominator (other than Microsoft salaries) is GNOME, which was led by an actual professional crank until she quit so suddenly months ago
Homeland of Linux Kernel Turning to GNU/Linux?
Adoption of Vista 11 has been relatively low
Deja vu: Hitler's Birthday, Andreas Tille elected Debian Project Leader again
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Links 21/04/2025: Fake Ceasefire and Software Patents (Fake Patents) Thrown Out
Links for the day
Companies With Fake Values and a Fake Economic/Financial State (Phony Valuations)
It'll all go up in smoke, eventually
Links 21/04/2025: Microsoft LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Going Out of Control, CT Scans' Cancer Problems Was Underrated
Links for the day
GNOME Has a Long History (Over a Decade) Misusing the Code of Conduct (CoC) to Censor (Cull) Legitimate Technical Criticism
This has nothing to do with manners, it's about control (by cover-up)
According to StatCounter, This is What Linux Adoption Looks Like (Based on Web Requests Visible to StatCounter)
How much worse will it get for Microsoft?
Gemini Capsules Still Outsourcing to Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Now Measured at Less Than 10 (or Less Than 0.3%)
In Geminispace, Let's Encrypt is not commonly used
Twisting Microsoft's Failure (Transmitting Malware) as "SSH Backdoors" and a Linux Problem
Somehow we almost always find that those FUD pieces about "Linux" are based on obvious falsehoods
Vista 11 Has Burned OEMs and Some Move to GNU/Linux
When people can finally avoid Windows (there's no reason to attach it to new PCs) there will be a lot more GNU/Linux users out there
Remember That Microsoft Mass Layoffs Are Imminent Because Its 'Empire' is Falling Apart
European politicians take a long, hard look a Free software
Richard Stallman in the UK This Week, Scheduled to Give Two Public Talks (London and Oxford)
Those talks do not cover the same topics
Gemini Links 21/04/2025: April, Autism, and ASN
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 20, 2025
Links 20/04/2025: Partly Assorted Scientific and Political Leftovers
Links for the day
Links 20/04/2025: Many Data Breaches and Growing Censorship Wave
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Canadian Elections and "Use the Best Tools You Have for the Current Environment"
Links for the day
Links 20/04/2025: Bleeding Constitution and ChatGPT Infuriates Users Some More
Links for the day
Chinese OEMs (and World's Largest) Pave a Path Out of Microsoft Windows
So Microsoft now values (or prices) Vista 11 at just $140?
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Contradictions of Mark Carney and Blog Questions Challenge
Links for the day
Microsoft's 'Lawsuit Diplomacy' (SLAPPs Riding UK Libel Law and Piggybacking UK GDPR, Inapplicable!) Will Only Give a Worse Image to Microsofters (and Microsoft), Give Exposure to Even More Suppressed Facts and Scandals
Microsoft came to dominate some sectors because of (or owing to) crimes; Microsoft won't just go away without some more crimes.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 19, 2025
Five (or Three) Years Without Social Control Media
Glyn Moody quit X (Twitter)
Electronics in People's Bedrooms
Modern technology not only blurred the gap between "functions" of rooms
Why GNU/Linux is Growing
There's growing interest in GNU/Linux right now because people do not fancy buying a new PC just to 'upgrade' (more spying) Windows
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Contingencies, GTD, and Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: Economic Races, Charm Offensives, and USB-C Rants
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: "Infantilization at Big Tech" and LLM Slop Abused in Defiance of Workplace Rules/Policies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Palm Addiction and Real Experts
Links for the day
Egypt is Controlled by Google, Not Microsoft
Moving from Microsoft to Google is not the answer
Microsofters Say They Cannot Find a Job (That They Want) Because of Techrights, But Techrights Merely Reported on Their Behaviour
Quit pointing the finger at people who are recipients of abuse or merely mention the abuse
Free Software and Standards - Not Marketing Blitz - Needed Amid Growing Severity of Dependency on Hostile Suppliers (or Another Country's Sovereignty)
ZenDiS can be described as the "Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration"
When It Comes to the Web, Google is Evil and It Destroys the Web's Integrity With LLM Slop
Even academia, which is meant to keep standards high, is being lured into LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 18, 2025