Microsoft breaches the Dutch data protection law by processing personal data of people that use the Windows 10 operating system on their computers. This is the conclusion of the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) after its investigation of Windows 10 Home and Pro. Microsoft does not clearly inform users about the type of data it uses, and for which purpose. Also, people cannot provide valid consent for the processing of their personal data, because of the approach used by Microsoft. The company does not clearly inform users that it continuously collects personal data about the usage of apps and web surfing behaviour through its web browser Edge, when the default settings are used. Microsoft has indicated that it wants to end all violations. If this is not the case, the Dutch DPA can decide to impose a sanction on Microsoft.
Kind of weird how Microsoft is found to be breaking the law, but they don’t get punished for it; only if they refuse to stop breaking the law will they be fined. Interesting.
Next time I get caught shoplifting I expect the same kind of leniency. “Sorry, I won’t do that again” should be enough.
By the way, few days ago OnePlus was found collecting personal info (including IMEIs and phone numbers) and all we got was the usual ” we take the privacy of our users very seriously”. Not even an apology.
Edited 2017-10-14 13:42 UTC
The want to end the violations… by changing the law so they aren’t violating it anymore. Thus solving the problem, once and for all!
Pretty much can be said about any of the mega corporations now. MS definitely lead the way for others to do the same though.
I was listening to a podcast / interview with a guy who had worked at Atari from 1982-1998. What he said about why Atari failed when going up to Nintendo was pretty much the same tactics MS has been using for years to make sure Windows was dominant.
Nintendo would tell stores that if they didn’t reserve a specific amount of shelf space for them, they couldn’t carry their product. And bonus to the stores if they didn’t carry the product of competitors. How this was never a huge lawsuit, I’ll never know. Not sure who pioneered this completely anti-competitive behavior, but it’s the same reason the Sega Master System (arguably a much better platform from the hardware perspective) to fail in comparison. Though a lot of this fault lies with Atari when they decided to try to sell their own console (7800) which was two years late, instead of just distributing Nintendo’s NES. Now they’re making hats with speakers built in… so there is that.
Link to that podcast ?
They have pretty much a market monopoly
No Windows operating systems on my computers right now, they won’t be installed now. Nor will be, in the future…
I have been using Linux since feb. 2017, and jumped straight from Win7. Win7 dies in 2020, and well.. I just had to jump to something that worked, as MS does not have any operating system that are worth my time at all.
Working nice for me, as I am one of those computer users, that have been jumping from MS products to some kind of Linux or Unix and back again, since I tried both Linux and Unix for the first time back in 1995.
I guess operating systems just come natural to me, when I have to use one. Yeah… I am one of those that feels right at home, no matter if I use Linux, Unix, (PC-BSD, FreeBSD or Mac OSX), AmigaOS, BeOS, Windows9x/2000/XP/7 or just plain old MS-Dos-6.22. Even Os/2 comes natural to me, and Commodore64 Basic too.
Yeah, I also feel very natural with MS-DOS these days: I boot it, I stare at black screen for a few seconds, then turn off the computer and go to sleep.
It’s easy to use any OS if you don’t depend on very specific tools to do your work and you have enough spare time to re-learn things.
Don’t know about that… Seems to me, that you are not using Dos for anything. I use Dos to this day. For gaming, music and reading old doc files. I use it for emulating a C64 drive, in order to move files to my C64 and write them to a floppy disk or save them on my SD2IEC drive. All I said, was that I still use old operating systems to this day, as I have computers from 1982 and onwards to 1999. Still use them, still maintain them. I even use a soldering iron when they become dead, and I take good care of them, in order to preserve just a tiny piece of history.
Edited 2017-10-16 20:37 UTC
It’s easy. Just ban all sales of their products in the country until they prove that they have changed their code. AND force them to pay $10,000 (after taxes) to each person who’s data they took without permission.
I bet that would change their tactics pretty quickly.
PS: And no, “time served†crap. And no $10,000 worth of our products. It should be paid in cash with the company paying all taxes income taxes on top of the $10,000. I’m using $ but the equivalent in that country.