Classy how the video cuts of just when the Google engineer had obviously something to add to her statement. I never cared much about Google and found their "don't be evil" mantra one of the most hypocritical claims in computing.. especially with their tendency to use the content of their "partners" to scoop them out with vertical-search offerings. So it's quite an achievement that this "ScroogledTruth" campaign for the first time ever made me sympathize with Google.

Thank you MS. What no Google-praising article on Slashdot et al. has managed to do, you've made it finally possible!

Bonus: MS gathered a bunch of hipsters to ask their opinion about Google "reading their mails":

Given their answers, it's clear that the camera-team told them that Google quite literally "reads" mails, and not that it's just an automatic algorithm assigning ads to keywords.

1 hour ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

Given their answers, it's clear that the camera-team told them that Google quite literally "reads" mails, and not that it's just an automatic algorithm assigning ads to keywords.

Given most of the answers, it was quite clear many of the people fully understood what was going on. I fully understand that Google doesn't "literally 'reads' mails(sic)", but like many in that video segment it still creeps me out when Gmail displays ads obviously based (often comically) on the content of the email I'm reading. So, sorry, I call BS on your claims that the "camera-team told them that Google quite literally 'reads' mails(sic)".

Try better at trolling, please.

Who wins here? The dog! Because in the end, it has clean balls. Besides, people like dogs, unless they don't.

-Josh

Q: Why do dogs lick their own balls?

A: Because they can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=o9fRAsqQ2Xk#t=1697s

It's about scroogled, outlook.com, and ads. What scares me with Google is that their ads are so targeted. about 80% of the time I get a Xamarin ad. It's like Google is calling me: come join the dark side

...or maybe it's just a crappy marketing firm?

I remember the original "Google reads your messages" ads from a couple of years ago - those were meant for large enterprise clients and those who might have a legal or policy-reason to avoid Gmail-for-Enterprise and instead use a self-hosted system like MS Exchange - of course Outlook.com and Office 365 means that companies no-longer manage their own email, so this angle is particular hypocritical.

I believe Outlook.com is a superior email system for its cleaner UI design (the irony), good mail management tools (folders, not labels), and of course: first-class ActiveSync support with devices, whereas Gmail only offers a proprietary, incompatible version of IMAP. Why isn't Microsoft's advertising firm touting these advantages?

Remember when Steve Jobs said that "we have to stop thinking that for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose" - and then they went on to become the world's #1 company without ever really competing with Microsoft. Funny that...

My fave was the Sinofsky *-fest, that explained much about the current situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5IdTc-klyY

and the Surface-Pro screw-up *-fest, that no-one really had answers for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc5dsZjV68I

Edit: Seriously? b1tch is a censored word ?

@elmer: why wouldn't it be a censored word?

I'd love to share pictures of my female-engendered canine companion.

EDIT: Or perhaps it could insert something like "I'm a big poopy pants" into people's posts?

C

1 day ago, fanbaby wrote

What scares me with Google is that their ads are so targeted. about 80% of the time I get a Xamarin ad. It's like Google is calling me: come join the dark side.

I kind of look at this two ways. First, I see these ads and they are right on target. It is a little irritating, because I unavoidably click on one, when I am looking for something else. Secondly, knowing how well these ads are placed gives me complete confidence that if I were to place an ad with google, it would get to my target audience.

On a side note, why does Bing keep asking me to try the Bing Challenge? I hope someone is doing something with the results of all these games, because I am tired of having Google come out on top, only to have Bing tell me that most people like Bing. That's stupid.

The best part about Bing is the nice looking pictures that it shows on the front page.

-Josh

I am not really concerned with ads. I am concerned my current email content has been shared with ad providers. It is possible to trace a person's active by inferring the ads that has been served to this person.

And to say those are not tracked is like saying you bill your customerA about the amount of ads you served while telling them you didn't have any prove that you didn't serve more competitors ads (customerB) than customerA. And there is no proof you pretend to show customerA's ads with phony IPs or vague counting number.

The best minds on this planet, or anyone else, can data-mine the bejesus out of my personal email without revealing the slightest bit of naughty goodness.

I suppose that if I were a rotten husband, I might think twice about using gmail. Now that should be the marketing tagline. If you are a bad person, or intend on being one someday, you might want to get an outlook.com email address, you know, just in case.

-Josh

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151267384212665&set=a.424610777664.193516.30899502664&type=3&l=f9abd384fb&permPage=1

1 hour ago, magicalclick wrote

Good news to you guys, the campaign is at its end. The site is still up. But they realized it is not going to change people's habit.

Just because the campaign was a mistake and it was short, doesn't mean that it was cut short or that anyone learnt from their mistake. It just means it was a short campaign

-Josh

2 hours ago, JoshRoss wrote

*snip*

How long did Apple run those stupid I'm a PC spots?

*snip*

Uh, not at all.