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Comment by Aldo_MX | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft criticizes how Google scans your mail to provide you with targeted ads, yet they are promoting the following service which is arguably similar:

> Sift makes it easier than ever to find the products you're already interested in. It uses existing shopping content in your Outlook.com account to discover your favorite stores and products, then creates a personalized shopping experience.

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I feel there is a very important difference between Google automatically scanning all of my emails, and Microsoft pointing out that a third-party service allows you to choose to have your inbox scanned now functions with Outlook.com.

IIRC, MS scan "to:" "from:" and "subject:" but not "content" whereas Google, they claim, does scan content.

I believe that MS scans for malware, but Google also scans to provide context based advertising.

They both provide access for the NSA anyway, don't they?

That's a different issue. This is about how they commercialize (monetize) their offerings, not about who grants what data to _Govs_. One issue is companies have more say with regard to how they monetize your data, the other is about how they are compelled, by law, to hand over your data to govts.

Amen to this.

I have a drea, that one day there will be a post relating any big software/internet corp, without a snarky comment about NSA .

I was just thinking that if you want to choose your service provider by how transparently and trustworthy your data will be treated, they both disqualify anyway.

The only difference is that they brand it as a feature rather than something you have to put up with in exchange for a free service.

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