News Microsoft Word and Excel AI data scraping slyly switched to opt-in by default — the opt-out toggle is not that easy to find

[Admin]

Microsoft's 'optional' Connected Experiences enable Microsoft to use Excel and Word files to train its AI technology, but it is possible to turn this feature off.

Microsoft Word and Excel AI data scraping slyly switched to opt-in by default — the opt-out toggle is not that easy to find : Read more

 

[Kondamin]

How is this legal?
Anything that has to do with user data should be opt in.

 

[USAFRet]

How is this legal?
Anything that has to do with user data should be opt in.

Unfortunately, "should be" and legality often have little to do with each other.

 

[hotaru251]

Anything that has to do with user data should be opt in.

because there is no law stating as such. Companies will always use whatever benefits them at expense of consumer.
While I and most others agree that anything "opt-in" should by default be off until there are laws about it it wont be.

 

[ezst036]

Typical Microsoft. They become more and more like Google with this stuff every day.

It is probably time for more people to give LibreOffice a try and kick Microsoft to the curb.

 

[palladin9479]

How is this legal?
Anything that has to do with user data should be opt in.

Because you clicked "I Agree" at some point in time, like when you installed it.

The answer is to just use Libre Office.

 

[Neilbob]

This is the problem when software becomes particularly ubiquitous - the corporation (and it usually is a large corporation) becomes able to take advantage of the loyal customer base without suffering major repercussions. Adobe did a similar thing with the mandatory subscription, and while cheaper or free alternatives gain some popularity, it's never enough to outweigh the knobbish behaviour of the 'big name', or to overcome the 'industry standard' that has so many companies over a barrel. And then there is also Google of course. The less said the better.

But in any case, even if nothing happens in the US to put the brakes on this new bit of unpleasantness, I'm certain many EU and maybe even Asian elements will take issue with it.

Myself, I ditched Microsoft Office many years ago (it's hard to justify when you don't really need it any more).

 

[JRStern]

Is this a "feature" of antique versions like Office 2013?
I don't seem to have the full path to this switch.

 

[ThatMouse]

There are government agencies where you would literally be leaking classified and CUI if this were turned on.

 

[USAFRet]

There are government agencies where you would literally be leaking classified and CUI if this were turned on.

And generally, those agencies have custom installs and GPO pushes to disable things like that.

 

[sadsteve]

Typical Microsoft. They become more and more like Google with this stuff every day.

It is probably time for more people to give LibreOffice a try and kick Microsoft to the curb.

Yeah, I got tired of Microsoft's shenanigans years ago so Libre Office has been my goto word processor for a long time now. It works under Linux and Windows so I'm covered on my main OS (Linux) and on my Windows VM.

 

[ctlane]

The temptation is to just turn this off. However, it's not that simple. Even if you click the "Learn More" hyperlink Microsoft doesn't fully explain this setting. One of the things that it will break is the ability of OneNote to synchronize notebooks to OneDrive so that they're available across all your devices. In spite of the fact that Microsoft charges for the software, they still want to steal your usage data for research and additional profits. I'm dreading the forced upgrade to Win11 and deluge of in-line ads within the operating system.

 

[USAFRet]

The temptation is to just turn this off. However, it's not that simple. Even if you click the "Learn More" hyperlink Microsoft doesn't fully explain this setting. One of the things that it will break is the ability of OneNote to synchronize notebooks to OneDrive so that they're available across all your devices. In spite of the fact that Microsoft charges for the software, they still want to steal your usage data for research and additional profits. I'm dreading the forced upgrade to Win11 and deluge of in-line ads within the operating system.

If you want syncing between your devices...it has to go UP to the MS cloud and then down to the other devices.

There is always a tradeoff.

 

[undervolter0x309]

The nerve and the gall! They train on human (creative) data and then fire humans to be replaced by these forever repeating "AI" systems. This is peak soul-less uncreative corporate behavior. If our American politicians gave two damns about their citizens they'd be blocking and sewing all these tech companies.

 

[Giroro]

"M365 apps, we (M365) do not use customer data to train LLMs. "

Ok, what about the rest of the company?
What about M365 selling that customer data to others to train LLMs, or having subcontractors use that data?
What about non LLM models?
What counts as a M365 app?
Is copilot a "M365" app? Is Office 365 a M365 app? Is Word? Is outlook?
What about non M365 apps?
Are posts to X legally binding?
Why is like 30% of all news just people complaining about garbage on twitter, and when did we go back to calling it Twitter??

While you're at it, define "customer" and "app" to the full definition used by the lawyers who wrote this statement.

We're talking about a company who secretly recorded/uploaded user voice data to 3rd party contractors to train Cortana, got caught, and committed to stopping for only 1 year until everybody forgot to be mad about it. Then they just went back to business as usual.
If they gave themselves a loophole, that loophole is being used.