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Comment by waps | Hacker News Reader

It isn't. Especially not when they did this first :

http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-rips-email-snooping-google-...

From your own link

>“Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your sent and received email messages in order to display targeted ads. ... Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your incoming email from other email service for the purpose of targeting ads. ... Outlook.com does not go through the contents of your entire inbox for the purpose of targeting ads.”

Google does all of the above, are you claiming there is no difference between the two services?

The new lawsuit against Google for building profiles of children using its free Google Apps for Education service has even more info:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/google-data-mining-...

>A Google spokeswoman confirmed to Education Week that the company “scans and indexes” the emails of all Apps for Education users for a variety of purposes, including potential advertising, via automated processes that cannot be turned off--even for Apps for Education customers who elect not to receive ads.

The problem is they criticize google while doing something far more invasive than letting robots look for keywords.

Google has the exact same wording in their EULA:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

"protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law."

Well that's bad of google but doesn't improve microsoft's argument. If anything they becomes more hypocritical because "why isn't microsoft criticizing that part....oh"

They become more hypocritical for not criticising about something they do themselves?

The lowest tier of being hypocritical is criticising all of google's failings when they have related but different failings.

The medium tier is criticising all of google's failings does except for what they also do.

The highest tier is criticising google for something they also do.

I thought they were at the low tier, but they're actually at the medium tier. So 'more'.

Sorry but I completely disagree, by not criticising Google for doing something they do themselves they are literally not being hypocritical, by definition. You can still criticise them for the situation, just not with that word. You can still call them hypocritical for the overall situation too, just not by picking out a specific narrow case where they have avoided being hypocritical.

They did not perform the actions google did, but the criticism they made of google's actions could be applied to their actions too. They claimed a high ground on the issue of privacy. They have no such high ground. This is hypocrisy.

I don't think that makes any sense.

If I criticize someone for talking loudly during class, and I haven't talked at all, that wouldn't be hypocritical, even if we were both browsing Facebook or something.

If you criticize them for being too loud with their talking while you were repeatedly slamming books against each other, you're being hypocritical. It's not the same behavior but it's still an inappropriate loud behavior. In the microsoft/google case it's privacy invasion.

There is nothing limiting them from doing so. Just because they behave like this today doesn't mean they will still do so tomorrow. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they already did so today. It wouldn't be the first time marketing saying something the technicians don't agree with. :)

False equivalence. Microsoft doesn't snoop every single email hoping to protect their property. This was a very controlled situation.

I am not saying it's equivalent. I'm just saying it's hypocritical in the extreme.

When it comes to "automated process goes through my email to decide which soda to offer me" ... I am not pleased, but not very worried. My bank does worse.

When it comes to "people go through my and other people's email to decide who to sue for what without legal oversight" that hits an 11 on the WTF scale.

I will NEVER trust Microsoft with one iota of my data again. They proved here that they will use it against me if it serves their business interest, or just snoop through it if they don't understand how something happened. At least the NSA claims they snoop through my email to "protect America". Microsoft clearly goes through my email to improve Microsofts bottom line. It wasn't even an employee's email they went through. It was an external hotmail customer that trusted them with this email.

This is akin to your bank going through the documents in your safe then use the found information to wire money to the Bank's CEO. This is way, way over the red line.

If they did this with physical mail, the minimum punishment for whoever in Microsoft did this would include jail time. We should have the same regulation for email.

Wrong. Google hands your email to software agents that select ads you are most likely interested to see. Microsoft hands your email to lawyers who will later sue you.

http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...

Did Google management order him to look into that data searching for something Google management wanted? No. Was he fired for that? Yes.

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