Mastodawn

Wolfie Christl

After two years of negotiations with Microsoft, the joint committee of the German federal data protection authority and 17 state regulators (DSK) published a devastating statement that essentially says that organizations currently cannot use MS365 in a lawful way under the GDPR.

Wolfie Christl Nov 25, 2022

Key issues raised by the DSK working group include that Microsoft's data processing agreement does not make sufficiently clear how Microsoft uses personal data it allegedly processes on behalf of the client for its own business purposes.

This must be escalated to the EU level.

Wolfie Christl Nov 25, 2022

The document states that it's not clear how Microsoft uses personal data on its clients' users for its own 'business purposes' while Microsoft grants itself extensive rights to do so.

It also states that Microsoft generally processes telemetry data for its own purposes at scale.

Wolfie Christl Nov 26, 2022

Microsoft now markets itself as a trustworthy and responsible tech giant, but it's not.

While keeping a friendly face, it works hard to undermine regulation and normalize corporate data misuse, including at work, not to mention its surveillance marketing and defense businesses.

Marc Véron Nov 26, 2022

@wchr It would be great to see some #Hashtags in your #Toots for more #visibility and #searchability in the #Fediverse.
With #Mastodon V4, it is possible to #followHashtags - but to do so, we need them.
#UseHashtags

🐧DaveNull🐧 ☣️pResident Evil☣Nov 26, 2022

@wchr They don't even need to put so much effort in their “trustworthy" bullshit… Many people already believed that for decades. And when you show them proofs of abuse, like for ex. what M$ did in Tunisia circa 2007, the patent for VoIP interception that M$ filled back in 2011 shortly after they bought skype, or more recently the steps they took to make st harder to install non-M$ OSes, with the help on Lenovo… Their fanboys will just put their hands in their ears and shoot out loud things […]

Quiatimet Nov 25, 2022

@wchr that insights nonsense gave me a bad vibe anyway. Glad german is clamping down on this.

Antonio Santos 🇵🇹Nov 25, 2022

@wchr That puts Germany on a data island, considering that there are no alternatives.

Mr45144 Kevin Prince Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @wchr plenty alternatives to the MS Suite.

Michael U Nov 26, 2022

@Mr45144 @Tribo @wchr MS365 is >20 applications, including an intranet platform and document management solution (SharePoint), Slack-like collaboration stuff (Teams), and other server-side tools like the mail server (Exchange). You can definitely come up with alternatives to all of those things, but be careful not to read this as being about desktop client apps like Word, Excel.

Mr45144 Kevin Prince Nov 26, 2022

@jet @Tribo @wchr it’s a badly put together bundle of things that don’t quite work as well as, say, slack but are convenient. The UX is awful in many cases and, given their dominance, really shouldn’t be.

@wchr @Mr45144 @jet @Tribo mwaa. I’m a fan of open source products but in my experience ms365 may be the best choice for a lot of organizations. F.i. because they miss the necessary knowledge to manage a best of breed set of open source products.

@adgerrits @wchr @jet @Tribo I think my beef is more with MS being such an ugly piece of UX. They are good enough to do stuff but so much friction- and Teams/web365 versions of the tools miss many of the features that make desktop apps useful. If it were a good experience I’d understand the ease for the administration but it’s not

@adgerrits @wchr @jet @Tribo and that’s not an open vs closed source argument. As a user (away from my nerd zone) I just want to get on with my actual job and not fight the tool. 365 has me constantly fighting the tool.

@jet @wchr @Tribo @Mr45144 Fair enough and recognizable ;) I just use it as a set of tools to store files in folders, chat and videoconferencing. That’s about it and it meets.

@Tribo @Mr45144 @wchr @jet Again: mwaa. Teams UX’ is horrible, integration with underlying SharePoint is a mess but still…. I look at average users that still prefer those tools instead of f.I. Slack. In the end it’s about productivity and Ms365 is certainly not the best but often enough the most suitable.

Antonio Santos 🇵🇹Nov 28, 2022

@adgerrits @Mr45144 @wchr @jet Slack is far worst and a complete nightmare for large organisations. Not fit to scale. A bad copy of IRC that is like mail on steroids. Works fine for a team of 10 people. Slack and Sharepoint have something in common; it's where information goes to die. 😀

@Tribo @adgerrits @wchr @jet fair point. But it does that so much better for the users than Teams. Imagine if MS had just collaborated instead of building their own half arsed version.

Michael U Nov 28, 2022

@Mr45144 @Tribo @adgerrits @wchr ... I'd just note that if they're doing things via APIs that might mean not hoovering up everyone's data.

@Tribo @wchr @jet @Mr45144 I get your point but if I were MS I would not want to depend on Salesforce’s Slack-API either.

@adgerrits @Tribo @wchr @jet it’s complex for sure.

@Mr45144 @Tribo @jet @wchr ‘it's where information goes to die’ LOL That’s the type of category you don’t want your product to belong to but in this case I agree.

Antonio Santos 🇵🇹Nov 28, 2022

@Mr45144 @adgerrits @wchr @jet When looking at managing large workplaces - 75k plus people / multilingual / distributed all over the world - while making sure it's accessible and all employees are equally able to contribute with their ideas on day to day operations while connecting with colleagues I don't think there are many options. Yes, UX and notifications are broken. A lot to improve in the digital workplace, but the vendors don't know how.

@Tribo @adgerrits @wchr @jet instead if trying to do it all and doing many things badly if MS had concentrated on, say, a decent api with Slack then we wouldn’t be using the Teams messenger or their horrible file sharing system. And I’d know where my docs were rather than buried in one drive. They know how but they don’t want to collaborate with other vendors

@jet @Tribo @wchr one day I might see an accessible usable and pleasurable instance of a Sharepoint site. But I’m not holding my breath

Michael U Nov 28, 2022

@Mr45144 @Tribo @wchr my day job is information management and I can tell you it's really not just about the software, it's under investment in internal/enterprise information architecture. Admittedly MS's "Modern Collaboration Architecture" invites a bespoke (read: inconsistent, confusing, effortful) UX because if you can edit something you can edit almost anything... Anyway, giant tangent.

@jet @Tribo @wchr for sure I agree with you there. Badly implemented Sharepoint doesn’t help to make the case for Sharepoint etc etc

Barry Hope #FBPE Nov 26, 2022

@Mr45144 @Tribo @wchr
I haven't used MS Office products since 2000.

@Mr45144 @wchr Users with disabilities might disagree with that. Office leads in accessibility innovation.

Mr45144 Kevin Prince Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @wchr that’s a good point.

Klaus Donath Nov 26, 2022

@Mr45144 @Tribo @wchr Which one offers Outlook features, teams and Cloud integration for big companies with distributed teams. Happy to get an alternative without laughing my ass off (dont come with zoom, open Office etc)

@Tribo @wchr first of all, other office software exists and second, the basis for this decision is GDPR, so all EU countries should come to the realization.

@mxk @wchr Other countries didn't not agree with this decision. Office is used across schools and public sector all over Europe.

@Tribo @wchr I would rather say, that who ever uses MS 365 has decided not to worry about GDPR too much.

OsamaSalah Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @mxk @wchr France has issues too in regards to schools with m364 and Google workspaces
https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/france_no_windows_google/

France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school

Hey, teacher, leave those apps alone

The Register

Leif Johansson Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @mxk @wchr its not that clear-cut. I see several orgs across the EU move away from 365 for many of the same reasons. This is not just Germany.

@leifj @mxk @wchr They will soon face a reality check.

Leif Johansson Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @mxk @wchr i doubt it

@leifj @mxk @wchr Some already did. It’s called accessibility compliance to users with disabilities.

Leif Johansson Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @mxk @wchr thats funny

@mxk @Tribo @wchr MS365 is not just office. Essentially you have a hard time to run any Windows network without it by now. And yes, there is other operating systems, but that isn’t the point.

@lsanoj @Tribo @wchr what? of cause it is exactly the office, and sureley you can replace MS Office with alternatives and 90% of Users will not even recognice the difference.
And yes, if the decision will also include Windows telemetetry, either MS adapts or it will loose most of the European market

@mxk @Tribo @wchr if you look at ms365 and say „yeah you just replace it with another office suite“ then you got no idea about the product. MS365 includes a couple of hundred products more. There is a lot to criticize more than office and telemetry. The problem runs deeper and you barely scratch the surface with reducing it like this.

@lsanoj @Tribo @wchr I know that office contains a lot of convenience and that (for some strange reason) companies like the whole Outlook thing, but I seriously don't know what you mean with "hundred products". MS365 officially contains 22 applications in the biggest version and some off them really are just gadgets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_365#Desktop_applications

Microsoft 365 - Wikipedia

@mxk @Tribo @wchr look at this feature matrix and it still is just a toplevel view. https://m365maps.com/matrix.htm
The issue with MS these days is excessive feature bundling. How can people that have to work with that, take critics seriously, if they have no idea about that and what's included in those products?

Feature Matrix

License feature matrix from m365maps.com by Aaron Dinnage

M365 Maps

Patrick Georgi Nov 26, 2022

@lsanoj @mxk @Tribo @wchr The confusion might be due to "Business MS365" and "Consumer MS365". The latter is more of a glorified office suite (and where Microsoft Office got folded in), the former exposes many more parts to the customer, including some related products like Azure AD.

Naming is hard ;-)

@patrick @lsanoj @Tribo @wchr I *do* use the enterprise MS365, I know what comes with it, and I know that its convenient. But just becasue its convenient, does not make it okay to violate GDPR.

@mxk @patrick @Tribo @wchr it's not about defending Microsoft, it's about that people say it's easy to move to another office solution, thats just downplaying the complexity. And yes, consumer office isn't the real concern here.

Patrick Georgi Nov 26, 2022

@mxk @lsanoj @Tribo @wchr The argument wasn't "it's convenient, so fuck GDPR". The argument was more akin to "Whoever proposes to replace MS365 with an office suite might not have a grasp how large MS365 is". And if anything that makes the GDPR situation with MS365 worse.

"Just replace it with Libreoffice" simply isn't helpful advice.

🦕 Justus ☠️ Tóth 🏁 Römeth Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @wchr no alternative to office? In which century do you live?

Martin Vermeer FCD Nov 26, 2022

@Squig @Tribo @wchr Yep, LibreOffice is literally an alternative to MS Office. I use it to read stuff others send me. But it is 'a bad idea done right'. Compatibility limits what they can fix. For my own writing, LyX/LaTeX every time!
#latex #lyx #writing #OfficeSuites

@martinvermeer @Squig @Tribo @wchr

Sass, David Nov 26, 2022

I think you got confused because Microsoft calls many things #Microsoft365.

It's more than just the office suite of installable products.

IMHO, an offline software suit shouldn't really be subject of GDPR because the data shouldn't go back to vendors.

So this is not about just Office and talking about alternatives to Office is just going down into the wrong rabbit hole.

Martin S 🚩❤️✊ 🇵🇸🇺🇦Nov 26, 2022

@sassdawe @martinvermeer @Squig @Tribo @wchr
I suspect when we talk about m365, we talk about mail, Azure, teams, OneDrive, defender etc and not the office suite as such. We are in a situation where it’s increasingly difficult to run stuff like mail on prem. This is something all European orgs wrestle with - and interpret GDPR in a number of ways. #m365 #law #gdpr

@sassdawe @martinvermeer @Squig @wchr OVHCloud just obtained a European loan of 200 million from the European Investment Bank to build a whole series of new data centres in Europe and elsewhere.

Jay Thoden van Velzen ☁️🛡️

Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @sassdawe @martinvermeer @Squig @wchr with a lot of self-interested lobbying and frivolous lawsuits - meanwhile they're the only ones that had data centers burn down

sef Nov 26, 2022

@wchr @Tribo Love it 😊

merien Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @wchr GDPR is a European directive.

@merien @wchr Each country added their own nuances. Some countries even tried to exempt public sector and government from it. We now have 28 versions of GDPR.

AJE Nov 26, 2022

@Tribo @wchr I do t think that Germany will be on a ‘data island’.
First - being referred to EU means it may become Europe Wide.
Second - it may be similar to California where it’s not worth creating multiple product lines, so strictest wins out of federal/CA law.
I suspect MS will string it out as long as possible, then cave. Cancelling the most objectionable data mining/usage and admitting to usage moving forward for compliance.

@AJE @wchr Germany GDPR nuances are slightly different from the other EU countries. We do have 28 versions of GDPR because countries have made their own adaptations of the European directive .