How Microsoft has (so far) avoided tough scrutiny over privacy issues

Quietly but confidently, Microsoft is back.

For the first time in almost a decade, it’s the most valuable company in the world while its archrival Apple stumbles. It’s been lauded for its smart pivot into AI and cloud services in recent years and its acquisition of the popular GitHub software development platform. And it’s almost completely avoided the privacy debacles and questions about monopolistic tendencies that have dogged Facebook, Google, and Amazon, which have resulted in those companies facing negative headlines on a daily basis, nasty lawsuits, and their top executives being grilled in U.S. Congress.

Microsoft sells targeted ads against search results, and users have complained about how their data is secured in the cloud, the company hasn’t received nearly the same level of scrutiny, and it’s been years since its executives were hauled before Congress.

That’s despite the fact that Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which has raised eyebrows with its uncanny skill at suggesting connections for its 600 million users, and was recently probed in Ireland for using email addresses of 18 million non-members to buy targeted ads on Facebook. And European governments have raised concerns about the storage of user data in the cloud via Office 365, and how Microsoft plans to address those issues. And through a partnership with Facebook, Microsoft’s Bing search engine was able to see the names of “virtually all” Facebook users without their consent through 2017. And just this week, Microsoft announced a deal with Kroger’s to set up retail experiences, in which displays will feature digital ads personalized to the individual shopper, raising privacy issues as well as potential cutbacks in retail jobs […]