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Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can’t Remove Them

posted by Fnord666 on Monday December 16 2019, @12:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-is-my-surprised-face dept.

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for chromas.

Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can't Remove Them

Microsoft displaying banners in the official Mail app for Windows 10 is something that we’ve seen in the past, but this time the company has apparently returned with a more aggressive approach.

If the original ad only showed up for insiders as part of what Microsoft described as just a test, the new version is displayed in all instances of the Mail app.

These include not only insiders, but also non-insider devices such as production machines. I’m also seeing the ad on my device running the stable version of Windows 10 version 1909.

The banner shows up in the left sidebar and recommends users to “Get the free Outlook app on your phone.” The weird thing is that the ad is displayed even if the Outlook mobile app is installed on a device where the same email account is configured, as I also use Outlook for Android and Microsoft Launcher on my mobile phone.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by zion-fueled on Monday December 16 2019, @01:34PM (2 children)

    by zion-fueled (8646) on Monday December 16 2019, @01:34PM (#932829)

    Stop with the FUD. The telemetry patches are either separate patches or feature updates. Plus missing a patch doesn't instantly put you in a botnet nor protect you from tomorrow's 0-day. If you really understood how security works you would know it's more than some vendor patches.

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  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 16 2019, @02:31PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday December 16 2019, @02:31PM (#932842)

    I agree. As far as we know, there are many patches that are telemetry-only. And as far as we know, the security patches don't include telemetry.

    There are fairly well publicized lists of those patches, and even simple .bat files for auto-removing them and other troublesome patches.

    Sometimes Windows Update tries to re-install those patches, but it's pretty easy to spot them, uncheck them, and mark them "hidden".

    It's also fairly easy to run a packet sniffer and you'll know if something unwanted is happening in the OS. I've caught a virus or two in action that way.

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 16 2019, @02:35PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday December 16 2019, @02:35PM (#932846)

    > Plus missing a patch doesn't instantly put you in a botnet...

    Actually, by definition and for all we know about what they're actually doing, some MS patches put you in the MS botnet.