this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024

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A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (www.windowscentral.com)

submitted 5 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

444 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.

Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.

It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.

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[–] ysjet@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Man, there is a LOT of people in this thread hoping to normalize this, or pretend it will happen anyway, or that it's 'not really a PR disaster', or that people will ignore it, or-

Go make your money elsewhere, christ.

[–] moon@lemmy.cafe 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gamers will literally install root kits on their PCs just because an update pop up tells them to. They really don't care lol.

[–] hikaru755@feddit.de 0 points 5 months ago

Companies and their legal departments do care though, and that's where the big money lies for Microsoft when it comes to Windows

[–] elias_griffin@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

OH, it was been a long time coming seeing this type of headline again, it's....glorius!

Microsoft is most years a #1 and sometimes a #2 Funder of: Rust, Python, and Linux. Are those destined for an E^3 "rug pull" too? Will it ever stop this kind of behavior, consistently conforming our behavior to itself with the money and industry position it leverages?

Don't forget in calculating that industry position that OpenAI is now able to contract to the DoD for offensive capability.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Linux is not dependent on money, they have no influence over it.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

While the influence is much smaller than with windows or apple, it's still there. Linux is hardened against capitalism, but if we start believing that it has no influence we set ourselves up for Debian Pro+ in the future. Just because it's good now doesn't mean it capitalism can't shit all over it faster than we believe possible...

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[–] peregus@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Microsoft has already taken a step back: Microsoft implements drastic changes to Recall after criticism

Recall needs to be enabled during installation
Windows Hello is needed so that only the users can view it's own screenshots
Recall database will be encrypted

[–] Lancoian@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah bur for the non tech oriented user it's still difficult . Most devices bought come with OEM install.

Even for a regular user it's going to sound like There is a virus that reads and remembers everything on your computer but you can turn it off and trust us it would be off.

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[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

I really hope the damage is done. They need to be knocked down a peg. This all should have been done first. Whoever thought this was a good idea is horrible.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It's what they should have done from the beginning, there must be a horde of MSFT employees holding back the urge of saying "told you so" to their boss right now lol

[–] peregus@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

there must be a horde of MSFT employees holding back the urge of saying “told you so” to their boss right now lol

🤣

[–] FangedWyvern42@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

And no one is going to trust them on this. They’ve burned that bridge.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

I guess if you want to verify the truth of this statement, look at Unity. They walked back their per-install system, but the indie community still moved away from them because it seemed clear they might try to do that at some point in the future.

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Who needs trust when you have a monopoly.

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[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Outside of the "Microsoft bad" comments, this is a prime example of why big tech companies need to stop promoting AI leads to a position where they are able to have influence over initiatives outside of AI.

The worst thing to happen to basically every product/service in tech right now is AI. It's made Google unreliable in the eyes of normal people for the first time in decades, it's destroying trust in Amazon content across reviews and Kindle, it's adding features to Facebook that no one ever wanted, etc.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And the annoying thing is, this tech can be exceptionally useful when it's actually been implemented thoughtfully.

Effortlessly cleaning up audio recordings using AI tooling is incredible, for example.

AI in image recognition to vastly speed up medical imaging diagnosis, or analysing lab work? Amazing.

Better offline translation? Sign me the fuck up.

Image description for the visually impaired, like my sister? Genuinely life changing.

The list goes on. Unfortunately, with big tech being as they are, their first thoughts turn to "which implementations of AI will aid us the most in scraping userdata and showing ads?"

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago

The list goes on. Unfortunately, with big tech being as they are, their first thoughts turn to “which implementations of AI will aid us the most in scraping userdata and showing ads?”

Don't forget making sure the peons can squeeze out more productivity for the 1%.

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[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Microsoft has done nothing to earn any good will or trust. Everything seems to spite the user or just harvesting maximum user data.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Microsoft lost my trust a long time ago. For the last 10-15 years, my only relationship with them is, "how much sh*t am I willing to put up with before I switch to something else?"

And CoPilot/Recall was the breaking point.

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