A group of Office 365 users has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft. The tech company is accused of sharing Office data with Facebook and other third parties without permission.
The victims argue that Microsoft is breaking its own rules, which stipulate that the company will never share customer data with third parties. Microsoft is said to have shared user data with hundreds of third parties, some of which have even been involved in a data breach.
In addition, Microsoft would use emails, documents, calendar information, customer location data for the development of future products. The way the company does this would be in violation of US law, the victims said.
Little can be done about it
The lawsuit mainly focuses on data that was shared with the social media giant Facebook, without approval from Office users. Contrary to what Microsoft promises, the company regularly shares customer data with Facebook and other third parties, the complaint says. “The data is shared even if Office users don’t even have a Facebook account.”
The moment Office users find out that their data is being shared, it will be too late to respond, according to the prosecutors. “The damage has already been done,” said the prosecutors. Once the data has been sent to Facebook, it cannot be reversed. Only Facebook could delete the data. The social media giant can even share the data with its own partners.
Microsoft is responding
Microsoft obviously disagrees with the allegations and finds them vague and above all unfounded. “We are aware of the charges and we will be watching it closely. Despite this, the allegations are not very specific and, in our opinion, they do not go anywhere, ”a company spokesperson said in a response to tech website The Register.
“We have a long history of good privacy protections and transparency and we believe we use user data in a way that is consistent with what we communicate to customers,” Microsoft concluded.
Microsoft doesn’t exactly have a clean reputation when it comes to protecting user data. Windows 10 and privacy hasn’t been a strong combination from day one. This gradually improved a bit, but it is clear that Microsoft is very curious about what users are doing in Windows 10. Here are some tips to hone your privacy in Windows 10.
.