Microsoft caught trying to shove ADs into Windows 10's Mail App

[AlTech]

Microsoft has been caught trying to shove Advertisements into Windows 10's Mail App .

 

Microsoft claims that this was a small scale experiment which was never intended to be tested broadly but news outlets and users on Twitter seem to disagree.

 

Quote

Do you use the default Mail client on your PC, the one that comes with Windows 10, to read your email? How would you feel if Microsoft decided to throw in a few ads right at the top of your inbox?

These aren’t rhetorical questions — as Windows news site Aggiornamenti Lumia noticed today, Microsoft is already testing that exact idea in a number of countries around the world. According to Microsoft’s FAQ, what we’re seeing is a pilot program, an experiment, a test that’ll theoretically help the company decide if it should actually roll out the feature for real.

 

Quote

But it’s pretty unusual for a simple A/B test to have such a well thought out plan for getting your dollars: if you want to opt out, Microsoft says it’ll only cost you the typical $7 a month ($70 a year) for an Office 365 Personal subscription.

 

The plan to shove ads all over the Windows 10 Mail App was so well thought out that Microsoft had figured out pricing and decided to require an Office 365 subscription to remove the ADs.

 

 

 

I'm honestly shocked they had the balls to do that and I will be recommending people I know who use it to switch to an alternative solution.

There is no excuse, especially considering Windows 10 is a paid-for product.

Source:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/16/18098855/microsoft-windows-10-email-mail-app-advertising-pilot-program

[porina]

Where is the line drawn between "part of the OS" as opposed to "bundled with the OS"? I'm a gmail user anyway so already have ads and promoted e-mails - e-mails from places I have signed up to that gmail elevate to the top. They're all commercial entities. Wonder how much they pay google for that privilege?

[Jurrunio]

Good, less reason to use the Mail app. I do use my hotmail account frequently, but I use Adblock to hide the ads there.

[elfensky]

Tbh I just use the app for native notifications, and given EU regulations there'll probably at least be a "disable" button, but it still sucks. Ads for such a basic functionality.

Ads in general, we paid for the OS and you're mining our data, what more do you want, MS?

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

we have now reached astronomical levels of insane. 

 

[LAwLz]

Not surprised considering they already have ads in places like:

File Explorer

Notification area.

The music player.

The video player.

Start menu.

Task bar (even injecting into other programs)

 

 

I recommend Thunderbird for an email client.

Although if your work uses Outlook then it's best to stick with that. It's pretty damn great.

[Mihle]

48 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Not surprised considering they already have ads in places like:

File Explorer

Notification area.

The music player.

The video player.

Start menu.

Task bar (even injecting into other programs)

 

 

I recommend Thunderbird for an email client.

Although if your work uses Outlook then it's best to stick with that. It's pretty damn great.

Really? I haven't seen any of that. I would be mad if I had.

[Arika]

49 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

File Explorer

Task bar (even injecting into other programs)

 

where? i've not seen ads in either of these?

[ARikozuM]

Does being a Pro user mean that I don't see these ads? 

[LAwLz]

40 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Really? I haven't seen any of that. I would be mad if I had.

39 minutes ago, Arika S said:

where? i've not seen ads in either of these? 

 

File Explorer - Microsoft started showing ads in Explorer for OneDrive.

 

Notification area - Unless you disable it (Settings -> System -> Notification -> Show me [...] and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what's new and suggested). Suggestions that appear here are things like, "try out Cortana!". I believe the ad for superbowl was a notification ad, but it's hard to tell because it might have been a Cortana ad (Cortana pushing out an ad as a notification, rather than the ad being generated by the notification center).

 

The music player - In Groove Music, you get a brightly colored box in the left corner telling you to install Spotify, and I do believe it used to recommend you buy a Groove Music subscription back when that was a thing.

 

The video player - When you start the video player app, it will show you a bunch of movies you can buy. In fact, the first, and default tab in the program is a store. The second tab is where everything you've bought appears, and the third tab is for the stuff stored locally on your computer.

 

Start menu - By default, Microsoft will show "suggestions" in the start menu for apps from the store. For example one day Candy Crush might show up in your start menu despite not having it downloaded. Clicking on it will however automatically install it on your computer. It can also show up as a pinned program in the start menu area.

 

Task bar (even injecting into other programs) - Last year Microsoft were showing ads for their Chrome extensions, from Chrome in the task bar. A popup message would appear from the Chrome icon, suggesting users to download the Microsoft shopping assistant extension. They have also done it for Edge users.

 

Lock screen - If you use Windows spotlight (turned on by default) then your lock screen will show ads.

 

Share dialog window - In the share window, Microsoft will "suggest" which apps you can download and use for sharing things.

 

Please note that these are not all the ads in Windows 10. There are more places, but I forgot to mention or didn't feel like it (the inking panel is another one where ads show up).

 

Please also bear in mind that ads will not appear in all of these places in all countries. Some of them only appear in certain countries (mostly the US).

If you haven't seen these ads then:

1) You might live in a country where the ads were never implemented (but all of these exist in some country out there, just maybe not the one you live in).

2) You might have disabled the ads before you could see any of them.

3) You might have seen them but not realized they were ads (for example the programs appearing in your program list as you scroll by).

[Syntaxvgm]

Next step- BSOD ads. 

[ARikozuM]

5 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

Next step- BSOD ads. 

Unsure if blue balled or if orgy is 20% complete...

[Syntaxvgm]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Unsure if blue balled or if orgy is 20% complete...

the real question is how do you click on it? 

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

the real question is how do you click on it? 

I'd assume that Microsoft sandboxes the ad so it remains completely functional. 

[DrMacintosh]

Wait, do people use the Windows 10 mail app? I tried to use it but its pretty archaic imo

[Maticks]

if you use the windows mail app you deserve ads

[Syntaxvgm]

8 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Wait, do people use the Windows 10 mail app? I tried to use it but its pretty archaic imo

I use it to QA email templates at work. 

[yolosnail]

I use the mail app purely for the notifications, I rarely actually open the app unless it's just to quickly reply to an email.

And to be honest, 90% of my emails are ads anyway so what difference would it make having an extra ad above them?

[Bcat00]

I don’t know about others but when I look at my mails I do it on my phone, otherwise I go on my browser instead.

 

does people really use the mail app?

[Canada EH]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

The plan to shove ads all over the Windows 10 Mail App was so well thought out that Microsoft had figured out pricing and decided to require an Office 365 subscription to remove the ADs.

Billy and gang are nasty b-tards I tell you. The greed is unreal!

[KuJoe]

The problem is that people hate ads as much as they hate paying money, so they'll complain regardless what happens. The only reason this is even newsworthy is because it's Microsoft, if this was an indie developer who made a freeware mail app and decided to go with an ad-supported business model for that application after a few updates it would not be in the news today. Just because Microsoft has a lot of money doesn't mean they do not deserve to earn more money. For the people upset about this, instead of complaining about it why not make a real difference and stop supporting them and giving them your money?

[iLostMyXbox21]

Just now, KuJoe said:

people hate ads as much as they hate paying money

have you not watched Mr. Beast

 

lel

[KuJoe]

Just now, iLostMyXbox21 said:

have you not watched Mr. Beast

 

lel

No I have not, he makes videos about donating money for random things right? He's one of the rare exceptions to the rule.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, KuJoe said:

The problem is that people hate ads as much as they hate paying money, so they'll complain regardless what happens. The only reason this is even newsworthy is because it's Microsoft, if this was an indie developer who made a freeware mail app and decided to go with an ad-supported business model for that application after a few updates it would not be in the news today. Just because Microsoft has a lot of money doesn't mean they do not deserve to earn more money. For the people upset about this, instead of complaining about it why not make a real difference and stop supporting them and giving them your money?

Some of us pay for Windows and then pay for Office. We shouldn't expect ads on products that we paid for. If you want to receive donations, add a button. There's very little reason to have ads on a paid-for product. Imagine if your car put ads on the instrument panel. 

[KuJoe]

9 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Some of us pay for Windows and then pay for Office. We shouldn't expect ads on products that we paid for. If you want to receive donations, add a button. There's very little reason to have ads on a paid-for product. Imagine if your car put ads on the instrument panel. 

1) The article said if you pay for Office you won't see ads.

2) Not the same thing, when you buy a car the instrument panel is part of that car. If you pay for a car and they give you a t-shirt with the dealership's logo on it that's not the same thing as ads on your car. While the Mail app comes pre-installed with Windows 10 it's its own application that is independent of the OS and can be removed without impacting the OS. I think a better solution would be for Microsoft to offer a "bloatware free" version of Windows 10 with just the OS... but that's a completely different topic.

 

EDIT: Correction, it can only be disabled and not uninstalled. Looks like Microsoft took a page out of Android's playbook for this one.

EDIT 2: Looks like I was wrong again, it's super easy to uninstall the Mail app in Windows 10.