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

[iLostMyXbox21]

jokes on them, i use Discord! ha!

[CarlBar]

14 hours ago, KuJoe said:

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.

 

The EU would like a word with you. They absolutely consider things bundled with the OS as part of it.

 

3 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

If they made free Windows version I guess I could see adds for their ow products. But for payed Windowa that would suck. 

 

Now this i can agree with.

[KuJoe]

9 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

The EU would like a word with you. They absolutely consider things bundled with the OS as part of it.

That's fine, they are entitled to their opinions just like everybody else.

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That response from Frank Shaw sounds like bullshit if you ask me. I think A/B testing to see peoples' reactions is a far more logical explanation that someone accidentally pushing out a beta version to everyone.

 

It wasn't an accident, they did push it out to the public intentionally, I think when they claim "broadly" they mean they never intended for this to go further than what it already did (during the trial).    So I read that as the whole trial wasn't an accident they are backpedaling from, it was a limited trial that was never meant to be broad from the onset. 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, XenosTech said:

Well not everyone got it. Might have been region specific test or it could have been a case like what Epic games did and "accidentally" enabled cross platform play.

That's why I said I believed it was A/B testing.

A/B testing is when you deliberately give different people different versions of things (such as programs or websites), then monitors their behavior to determine if a change is good or not.

I mean, there are only two explanations for why this happened.

The official story from Microsoft is that they accidentally enabled this for some users.

The other explanation is that they did it deliberately.

 

If you ask me, it seems very unlikely that Microsoft would "accidentally" write a patch which introduces ads into the email client, and then "accidentally" push that update out, but only to specific people (maybe they "accidentally" created a list of people who would get this new version which contained ads).

It seems far more likely that Microsoft thought "hey, maybe we should monetize our email app by introducing ads inside it. Let's develop that and then try pushing that out to some people to see how they react".

 

4 hours ago, asus killer said:

complain all you want, i don't think i said not to complain to them, what i said is that it is a non issue, you only see ads if you care to. I see no ads and i'm on the web everyday. I only see ads if i want to specifically see them, to help some site or whatever.

How is it a non issue when a program becomes worse for the users?

I am not sure what you mean by "you only see ads if you care to". You can't use for example adblock inside the email app.

The only way to avoid ads baked into a program would be to stop using the program, and at that point we have the issue I described where the developers may not know why people are abandoning the program.

[asus killer]

37 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I am not sure what you mean by "you only see ads if you care to". You can't use for example adblock inside the email app.

The only way to avoid ads baked into a program would be to stop using the program, and at that point we have the issue I described where the developers may not know why people are abandoning the program.

you have alternatives with no ads, just pick one. 

[Fetzie]

21 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

No. 

 

The only way to remove the Windows 10 Mail app ADs is by having Office 365.

 

If you're not seeing the ADs now it's cos Microsoft tried to put this under the rug and cover it up. They didn't show it for everybody.

And if you have Office 365 then you have Outlook, a vastly more powerful email client and would never have even opened the Mail application in the first place

 

So basically Microsoft is looking to make some money out of the people who don't want to buy into Microsoft's Office package (either single-release or subscription model).

[XenosTech]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It seems far more likely that Microsoft thought "hey, maybe we should monetize our email app by introducing ads inside it. Let's develop that and then try pushing that out to some people to see how they react".

Funny enough they do that with OWA and ask you pay for office365 to remove the ads

[Canada EH]

On 11/18/2018 at 9:14 PM, captain_to_fire said:

annually

Ouch

 

Bill is smart with recurring income streams such as that

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Wouldn't it be better if they first focused on actually making Windows work properly? 

Can't update Win10 for shit (seriously, how many times have they messed up 1809 by now?), but this garbage makes it out just fine.

 

I guess this shows where their priorities are ...

[Franck]

On 11/18/2018 at 3:42 PM, AluminiumTech said:

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.

 

 

 

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

that's not new. I have had news in mail app for at least a year. why does it only come out now ?

[corrado33]

Oh you mean like the "ads" they already shove into the start menu tiles bull crap by default?