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First off I dont mind what OS you are using. This rant isnt about the OS but about hypocrisy for some of the users. Secondly Im sorry for typos, I typed it on my phone while waking up.

People are calling Windows spyware, so they are using Linux or MacOS. Even though I disagree with the term spyware I would be fine with that if you weren't a hypocrite.

How many of the people who use Linux and call windows spyware uses Google, Apple, Facebook or Twitter once in a while? I highly doubt you if you say you don't.

A few years back Ive tried to live without anything of google, this also meant blocking YouTube, their trackers an javascript libraries.
Not much of the internet still works if you block google servers.
Google is everywhere and always collects data.

Facebook and twitter also collects data about you. Everyone who has your number in their phone will share it with Whatsapp and google so they can build up a profile. Even if you dont block it.

What I am telling you is that its impossible to avoid being tracked by these companies (including MS).

Every company I mentioned here has a profile on you, if you want it or not.

So let's check which of these companies tries to follow European laws.
Google gets fine after fine but doesnt really try to avoid it.
It looks like Apple, MS, Facebook and Twitter are doing it better on this.

But if you check the European law every European citizen is allowed to request their complete profile collected by a company. And that means complete and not the public part you volunteered to give away.

So I tried it out.
Google didnt want to give it, apple didnt want to give it, Facebook didnt want to give it and Twitter doesnt want to give it.

The hypocrisy is becoming clesr with the following. I did get my complete profile from MS. It was a messy PDF file which crashed most PDF readers.
It contained a list of people I know and how I know them. It contained MS accounts I had in the past and my hobbies. (and quite a lot more)

So from these big companies MS is the only one following the European Law.

So yes they do collect data, but they are open in what they collect.

And Im not saying here that Microsoft is great just because they follow the law.

You can have your own opinion about this and do with it what you want. I just wanted to share some, maybe alternative, facts.

And again this isn't an OS rant or whatever. I dont mind what you do, but I do mind hypocrisy.

Comments
  • 4
    I don't see the direct connection between Linux and Google. Maybe try CubesOS and services like startpage. In the end the only thing we can do is to choose who we trust carefully and elect better politicians. Especially the sort of without alternative facts; facts are facts xor they are not. It is dangerous to give up, because thier data collection capabilities seem overwhelming - we cannot give into fatalism!
  • 4
    ReactOS ftw
  • 2
  • 33
    Eh, pretty cool to see someone actually went and asked for their own profile to the big guys. Kinda sad that they can so blatantly ignore the law. Well, I might actually consider MS's products more now that I know that.

    Thank you for taking the time to do that, I've always wondered how that would go, but was always too lazy to do so
  • 8
    @CptFox There was a dutch guy a few years back who wanted his facebook profile, he had to go to court to get it. He won so at the end of the court he got it. If you really want it go to court, but it's a big hassle. Even contacting facebook is near impossible (try looking for contact details)
  • 5
    Google allows you to dosnload your data here:

    https://takeout.google.com/settings...
  • 10
    @underscores that is not all the data google has about you. do you have multiple google accounts? they don't show you links between them if you do it this way. You also don't get a list with interests for example. This list is to incomplete.
  • 14
    Question, how can you be 100% certain that they gave you everything they have?

    Next to that, it indeed is impossible not to be tracked entirely but damn you can prevent a lot.

    MS is, just like Google, part of the spy cloud (PRISM) with their services like onedrive, Skype (although Skype is also part of a CIA program (source: wikileaks Vault7) which converts every video/voice call to transcript.

    Anyways, you can't prevent all tracking but you can prevent a lot. I don't use much social media and I've got google/fb/twitter/MS blocked throughout my entire network so their domains (requests) don't even leave my house.

    So yeah, for once I agree with the hypocrisy BUT, I personally don't like the way you're (not literally and I might even get it wrong) saying that you can't do anything to keep companies from tracking you.
  • 4
    @linuxxx if you block google then you also block their javascript libraries when used with a CDN. Using the internet without that is nearly impossible. Since 80% of the bigger websites will block you for blocking google.

    Unless you downloaded the blocked libraries once and redirect to those files I highly doubt your good internet experience.

    And while writing this rant I thought you would comment. And yes we cannot know if that is all the data. But the ammount of data Ive seen makes me think its pretty damn close.

    I do think you are as close to being untracked as can be but if you want to work somewhere you just dont have any choice.
  • 6
    @Codex404 Take a look at Decentraleyes. I monitor all requests and I'm not (or hardly) getting anything to Google/facebook etc.

    1 out of every 50 or so sites I visit doesn't work correctly but even if that number was more than 25, I'd happy give that up for not being tracked but that's just me :P
  • 4
    @Jop- Through PRISM (although they might not want it, they've gotta comply to the FISA court orders (non public)), the NSA gathers data from about 10-15 of the largest Internet companies directly :/. But this happens to any company that has loads of users and becomes big in the US too badly :(
  • 2
    How can I request it I'm interested I. That they have on me
  • 2
    Watch this interview with Richard Stallman and you'll see that it is possible to not be tracked. It's just difficult.

    https://youtu.be/jUibaPTXSHk
  • 2
    @Jop- Damn we agree on something Oo. And yeah, the only way to protect your users from that stuff is to open source your code, make everything end to end encrypted and hardly save any metadata because that way, they can't really gather much usable data.
  • 3
    @linuxxx I love it when you talk privacy, if only there were more people like you in this world.
  • 1
  • 5
    I don't use Linux because of Windows spyware.
    I use Linux because it's a better os for developers with superior tools.
  • 0
    @clovisIrex it really depends on the type of dev you are.
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