Well, if there's some sort of cloud feature allowing you to share documents you write with others, it would make sense you would have to allow Microsoft to "reformat, display, and distribute" for the purpose of providing you that service.

However, the terms of service says "To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, [...] and to improve Microsoft products and services". So they're saying they can use your content not just to provide you service, but to provide other people service and to improve all Microsoft products.

▲

alt227 10 months ago | parent | next [-]

> it would make sense you would have to allow Microsoft to "reformat, display, and distribute" for the purpose of providing you that service.

That would be me sharing a specific document with a specific person. If their terms sepcified that they would only ""reformat, display, and distribute" to people we personally give permission to then that would be fine, but it doesn't.

▲

Thorrez 10 months ago | parent [-]

>That would be me sharing a specific document with a specific person.

If you're sending it to them directly (e.g. emailing a file), then sure. But if Microsoft is hosting it on their website, then I think Microsoft would be displaying it to the person you shared it with.

>If their terms sepcified that they would only ""reformat, display, and distribute" to people we personally give permission to then that would be fine, but it doesn't.

I think you're basically saying the same thing I said. I said it would be fine if the terms said "To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you." I think that has the same effect as what you're saying. I'm not a lawyer though.

▲

alt227 10 months ago | parent [-]

> But if Microsoft is hosting it on their website, then I think Microsoft would be displaying it to the person you shared it with.

The point is not that microsoft is displaying it, it is that they are displaying to a person I have given explicit permision to. They could easily put that in their terms if they wanted to to clarify the point. The fact that they dont shows they want to display it to other people/machines than the ones I give them permission to.

	▲	Thorrez 10 months ago \| parent [-]
		I think we're agreeing. We're both saying that Microsoft should change their ToS to reduce the amount of permission they have to share users' content.

▲

HPsquared 10 months ago | parent | prev [-]

The word 'necessary' can do a lot of heavy lifting.