Mozillas petition to get an answer from Microsoft, is it using your data to train its AI?

Microsofts new Terms and Service agreement is rather questionable. In short; It does not clarify if Microsoft will use your data to train it’s AI.

So Mozilla is calling for arms to sign their petition for Microsoft to give a proper answer! You can sign it here -> foundation.mozilla.org/en/…/microsoft-ai/

Mozillas Context;

Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI? We had four lawyers, three privacy experts, and two campaigners look at Microsoft’s new Service Agreement, and none of our experts could tell if Microsoft plans on using your personal data – including audio, video, chat, and attachments from 130 products, including Office, Skype, Teams, and Xbox – to train its AI models.

If nine experts in privacy can’t understand what Microsoft does with your data, what chance does the average person have? That’s why we’re asking Microsoft to say if they’re going to use our personal data to train its AI.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Why ask when you know the answer is yes?

If the product is free, you are the product. Even when it’s not free, you’re still the product because data is too valuable.

LunchEnjoyer,
@LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

although a good mentality, its not always correct. Also, this isn’t just about “asking”, it’s fighting big corps/tech to be more transparent about their policies.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

And if they say “yes”, if they are blatant and transparent about their business model, that will somehow make it better? This idea of “putting sunshine on a problem” never actually solves anything. The problem company just comes back with “Yeah? So? What the fuck are you going to do about it?”

LunchEnjoyer,
@LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

Well, the more negative feedback they get the more they will rethink it. Just like what happened to Googles proposed “Web Integrity” API recently. It recived a huge negative backlash and in return they dropped the idea, for now…

But if you’re asking if “blatent and transparent” polices are better than the ones that are not, then the answer to that is a big fat YES ofcourse they are. I personally have had enough of google and microsoft so im staying away from their serivces as much as I possible can.

jarfil,

Shining light on a problem is a good step to make people realize there is a problem in the first place.

What the fuck are you going to do about it?

Start a meme campaign targeted at countries with privacy legislations, aimed at making their future governments ask for higher bribes more lobbying before signing away taxpayer money to Microsoft contracts…

I mean, ideally have Microsoft rethink its approach, like Meta is rethinking its with Instagram, but let’s start with something simple.

egeres,
@egeres@lemmy.world avatar

Is mozilla the only company fighting for privacy?

dingleberry,

Every company is fighting for profits. Be a fan of products, not brands.

otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

Mozilla is a non-profit organization

Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all.

They sell some services to fund their other initiatives

jarfil,

Didn’t Mozilla get most of its funding from Google for promoting its search engine? Or has that changed?

fne8w2ah,

Something something spez the hurensohn also jumping in on the same bandwagon some time back?

yoz,

Signed. Thanks Mozilla and fuck you Microsoft

AMillionNames,

I mean, it is. They keep a list of all your conversations and they are extremely vague about giving a direct reply. Hopefully this does something because, like US congress has itself admitted, they cannot afford to let the same thing happen with advanced AIs that they’ve let happen with social networks. Transparency needs to be a thing, and not fake “oh yeah I’m all about transparency” then goes out of their way to hide shit under the carpet or gaslight with bullshit when they can’t.

nyakojiru,
@nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

“Open”AI stole the open web and monetized it and made billions , and there are no solid legal consequences. So why Microsoft and other companies wont do the same? I mean Google is doing it and made an empire of it.

sarmale,

Was openai ever open? Or its just a name scheme

otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

I’ve been meaning to look that up for a while

OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.

Interesting

StraightArrow,

Isn’t everyone?

aniki,

no.

cypherpunks,
@cypherpunks@lemmy.ml avatar

too bad they aren’t waiting for the answer (lmao) before switching to microsoft git hosting for their development

nitrogenez,
@nitrogenez@lemmy.world avatar

my opinion is:… it’s obvious. it’s microsoft. they do everything to make profit, AI included.

AWittyUsername,

Not defending Microsoft, but isn’t that the same for all companies.

aniki,

no. especially not in the open source service world that runs 4/5ths of the internet.

NullaFacies,
@NullaFacies@sh.itjust.works avatar

I mean… Google already does this… We know Microsoft already does this. This feels like an attempt by Mozilla to garner attention from both the press and users to promote Mozilla accounts.

AWittyUsername,

People like you are the worst on the internet

NullaFacies,
@NullaFacies@sh.itjust.works avatar

I love that this upset you so much, you commented about it. 👏👏👏

FWIW, This is calling out FUD.

blind3rdeye,

Hold on, let me get this straight. You say that Google and Microsoft are already using your personal data for the benefit of their company profits, without permission - but that Mozilla are the bad guys for calling them out on it, and offering alternative products that don’t exploit users. Is that right?

RandomVideos,

I dont use anything made by microsoft so i dont think its using my data to train AI

blind3rdeye,

It’s probably ok for you to not use this form then.

doyadig,

Is there any guide for a windows noob that wants to switch to Linux? I mostly use software that manages my video and audio collection. I don’t know where to start.

sunbeam60,

YouTube is honestly the best place for tutorials. I went from being a complete Linux noob to running more Linux in the house than I can count, just by watching video on YouTube.

AlmightySnoo,

DJ Ware’s YouTube channel is awesome. For instance, he has a nice video on distros for beginners: www.youtube.com/watch?v=30mLqdQw3qE

AlmightySnoo,

For questions you may have the !linux community is very welcoming. In theory there are also !linux4noobs and !linux4noobs which should be more targeted at new users but they seem to be quite inactive lately (won’t hurt anyone here to go take a look there and try to keep them alive :-)).

doyadig,

Thanks buddy.

abhibeckert,

I recommend a virtual machine on your Windows PC as a host.

Start simple, e.g. do all your web browsing in the Linux VM. Don’t try to transition entirely to Linux in one go, that’s too much. Once you’re comfortable in the web browser, add one more piece of software.

Eventually get to the point where you’re doing everything in the VM for a month or so, and then boot into it directly. Or perhaps buy a second PC and a KVM for your keyboard/mouse/monitor. Because you might find there’s one thing (e.g. games) that works better on Windows.

rustyriffs,

what’s a kvm?

thisbenzingring,

keyboard video mouse switch (for using one set of keyboard, mouse, and video with multiple computers). Think of it like a channel changer

rustyriffs,

ok, that’s cool. I’m tracking now, just wasn’t familiar with the acronym. I could definitely see the benefit of being able to hotswap between environments like that. I’ll have to remember that If I get to a point where I can dive into it fully.

jack,

If you want to get emerged into the linux world and get broad understanding then I recommend watching videos on youtube by DistroTube. Adjacent, kinda more advanced channels are Luke Smith and Brodie Robertson.

If you just want to use linux and be done with that topic, you can use linux mint. What you have to know is that you get all software from the software center, not from websites. The rest should be very familiar.

Tired8281,

Start using free software now, while you are still on Windows. Whenever you want to do something new, do a search for free software you can do it with. Then when you do finally switch, all the software you’ve been using is already right there.

aniki,

This is mighty fine advice. Figure out your favorite cross-platform apps first before switching. Chances are most of those FOSS apps have Windows binaries.

Octopus1348,

You should first dual-boot. It means you will keep your Windows partition and when you turn on your computer, you can choose Windows or Linux to boot up.

To choose a distro, there are plenty of YouTube reviews. I’d recommend Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or Linux Mint for a beginner. Dual-booting is easy on these distros, you just have to select install alongside Windows and then how big you want the Linux partiton to be.

For putting on a USB, download the ISO of your chosen distro, and use BalenaEtcher to flash to your USB (it will erase everything from your USB, so back your data up). To boot into the USB, reboot while holding press Escape, and see if that brings up a boot device picker. If it doesn’t, try other keys at the top of your keyboard or press the restart button in Windows 8+ while holding down Shift, wait for it to load, and in the blue menu, ho into Select boot device (or whatever it’s called) and select the USB.

Before installing, you should check out if stuff works on Linux like audio (you can test these out because you are on a live system booted from your USB), and if it doesn’t, check if you find a fix online, but everything should work fine.

For the software alternatives (if they aren’t on Linux), I recommend alternative.to, and learn the new apps. When you feel comfortable, you can then move all your files to Linux and completely delete Windows (you should BTW be able to see your Windows partition from a files app).

doyadig,

Thanks everyone for being so friendly and wanting to help.

AustralianSimon,
@AustralianSimon@lemmy.world avatar

OpenSUSE is very Windows like if you want a similar setup.

cabron_offsets,

Does the pope shit in the woods?

MrJukes,
@MrJukes@lemmy.today avatar

Only if nobody is around to hear it

RaoulDook,

On my work PC it’s painfully obvious that MS tracks every word you type into Teams and Outlook based on the clickbait shit they plaster all over the MSN homepage. It’s always customized to include topics that were discussed in my work messages.

Nowhere in any of the Office365 land do you see a notification that they are analyzing everything you do, but it remains obvious that they are.

This leads to the reasonable conclusion that they will abuse your data for any avenue of profit.

paraphrand,

That’s wild. Are you serious? Can you point to any proof or articles about that direct reflection of the snooping? I assume your employer had to agree to their information being used for advertising/etc.

RaoulDook,

No I haven’t researched it at all, I have simply observed it in action as the crap they push through on a browser without an adblocker. Lots of very specific things related to the contents of my work discussions.

Syldon,
@Syldon@feddit.uk avatar

That is built inherently into the Windows OS. Open your resource monitor and check network activity. Put those IP addresses into www.ip-lookup.org/location

And then question why all that information is being sent out. Drivers, DRM for software and many other stuff have self reporting automation built into them these days.

Bishma,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’m just going to start posting in Esperanto. Even AI won’t be interested in learning Esperanto.

sramder,

They do exist! :-)

aniki,

Learning a fake language definitely sounds easier than learning to use Linux.

Bishma,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Certainly easier than convincing my job to let me put linux on my work laptop.

blind3rdeye,

Hot tip: If you’re switching to Linux and you’re not sure how to do something - ask your favourite LLM AI chatbot for help.

There’s typically some terminal command or config file or something that you can do to get what you want, and I’m sure it all makes sense to an experienced linux person, but its not easy to guess what to do as a novice. But since all the commands and such are well documented, you can get pretty good advice from the AI. As usual, it won’t be completely reliable - but you can think of it as a bit like asking a tech expert for help over the phone. They know a lot and can help you - but they can’t see exactly what’s on the screen and they may ‘misremember’ some details from time to time. So it isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly good enough to find what you are looking for.

(Or you can just ask a real person. Those are pretty helpful too.)

aniki,

Homie appreciate you typing all that but I’m a full time Linux engineer. If anything stuff I have worked on and written has become part of the AI landscape.

blind3rdeye,

Fair enough. I didn’t really mean to direct what I was saying at you specifically; rather I was just kind of continuing the conversation.

And yeah, the only reason that the AI stuff works at all is because people have taken the time to write down good advice in the past - which has then unforeseeably used as AI training data (without consultation or compensation…) So yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if your work was in there somewhere.

jarfil,

Too late, it already has learned it:

Default (GPT-3.5)

User: Translate the following text into Esperanto: “I’m just going to start posting in Esperanto. Even AI won’t be interested in learning Esperanto.”

ChatGPT: “Mi ĵus komencos afiŝi en Esperanto. Eĉ la intelekta artifiko ne estos interesita lerni Esperanton.”

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