I dont' know why so many people are surprised by the Cortana data vacuum. Doesn't Siri send everything you say to it to Apple or a "trusted partner"? Why would Cortana be any different?

The keylogger and Start menu ads are just creepy though. I shouldn't have to opt-out of targeted ads INSIDE MY OS.

There's also a difference in perception between Apple's "trusted partners" and MS and Google's "trusted partners". Since MS and Google make a large amount of money from selling you to others, I just instantly assume that they're sharing my data with advertisers. Since I pay for all my Apple stuff and they repeatedly say that they don't sell my data, I assume that "trusted partners" means companies they've outsourced speech recognition to, or whatever, and that it won't ever be used for tracking or advertising.

Isn't MS closer to Apple than Google in terms of how it makes money? You pay directly for all or most of its stuff. Also, I thought Google sold your eyeballs to advertisers but not your data nor how it figured that it were your eyeballs that were most fit for the ad.

(I guess for some ads, the very fact that it thought your eyeballs were fit for them already discloses more about you than you'd like... and I'd guess that at least some ads placed by Google would be able to figure out whom they were shown to. But other than that, isn't data collected by Google kept secret from everybody else? It'd make sense from a business standpoint apart from any other considerations; better keep the competitive advantage, and better keep exactly what you know a secret from users as well as competitors.)

> Google sold your eyeballs to advertisers but not your data nor how it figured that it were your eyeballs that were most fit for the ad.

This is exactly correct, and it's why I prefer trusting Google with my data over anyone else. I'd rather have my eyeballs bought and sold by a company who's only competitive advantage is the fact that only they have my data.

Microsoft has Bing and their own advertising platform, with a tight partnership with Yahoo. Bing is now tightly integrated within Windows since version 8, ads and all. It's really irrelevant how much money Microsoft makes from this when they are in the same business.

Also, I interacted with Google's AdX and others and I must say that Google's AdX is much more restrictive in the user data exposed. The identifiers they give are completely unreliable for tracking users and they don't even give away the full IP. They are also doing a good job in reviewing the content being served on the client side, they detect if you're setting cookies or doing other things that are against their policy and their approval process is a pain in the ass. Other competing platforms, like MoPub (now owned by Twitter), are much more relaxed.

The general rule of thumb in the ads space - the bigger you are, the more eyes are watching you, this is why smaller players are breaking the rules with the purpose of grabbing as much land as possible before going public.

Wasn't Bing Ads just sold to AOL a month ago?

Bing has also been the default for Apple's Siri for a couple years? They may be growing their own search engine to support Siri, but I'd be interested to know if there are any identifiers passed to Bing for those searches... Trusted Partners and all.

There are a lot of assumptions in your post, but I guess that's implied given you are talking about perceptions.

At least for me I tend to trust MS (at least the new MS) more than I do apple or even google.

You've had targeted ads on your XBox homescreen for a long time; a core OS feature of the iPhone is the app store, which features targeted ads. When app discovery becomes a part of the OS, advertising seems to naturally follow.

there is large difference between ads in your face and ads "once I've explicitly indicated I'm looking to shop because I clicked on the App store"

MS seems in the mindset "Can't beat 'em, join 'em" as we're only In-App Purchases away from a freemium OS.

Minesweeper and Solitaire are now freemium...

To be fair, Apple needs that messaging for Siri because they outsource the speech recognition to a 3rd party (Nuance, I think). It's not like your phone is doing all of that legwork locally. I'll bet it's the same deal with Google Now and Cortana.

I think Google handle their speech recognition in house, but do outsource snippets to help improve it.

What do start menu ads look like?

The new XBox 1 update I installed yesterday has placed a "Featured" column on the main interface with ads. Think a start menu folder with links to sponsored web pages/apps.

A little "Recommended App" tile underneath your "Most Used" list.

I still have no idea what you all are talking about. After fresh install, my Start looks really barren, I'd even welcome these mythical ads...

http://i.imgur.com/tdkFeiQ.png

Wow, that's huge. Are you in tablet mode? If not, you can drag the edges of the start menu to resize it.

Yes you can resize it, to 1/4 of that or so.

That doesn't seem too invasive.

I believe it suggests an app from the store to you sometimes.

This is undoubtedly fake. Why even post this garbage?

If you know it's fake, why would you bother posting it or even bringing it up?

"Its awesome living in a mansion! According to this picture, this is what my mansion looks like"

"!!!EDIT: I know I don't own a mansion, but other people do and this is what it would look like if I had one."

Because the windows store app ads are themselves real, so the principal point stands. There's no need to get up in arms over it.

That ad doesn't really fit the grid in the start menu, which seems odd to me. Microsoft was fairly gung ho about the grid in the Win8 start screen, and I'd assume here too since it's supposed to reflow automatically in between tablet and desktop mode.

Agreed. Doesn't everyone wonder why everyone wants to have their own offering that you can speak to?

>I dont' know why so many people are surprised by the Cortana data vacuum.

Well, today is Thursday. That other stuff was from Tuesday. Tomorrow it will be something else about somebody else.