The Skype Twitter account recently tried to ride the wave of WhatsApp hate. WhatsApp came under fire after the service changed its privacy policies. With many people on the hunt for the best WhatsApp alternatives, Skype tried to draw in some more people. Unfortunately for the Skype team, they didn’t get the response they were likely hoping for.
In addition to the expected internet trolling of people bashing Skype, discussing other services, and calling Skype a fossil, people also noticed something about Skype’s tweet. ZDNet highlights that within the tweet, Skype included a link to its Microsoft privacy statement that clearly states that Skype uses data that is obtained from third parties.
Under the section “How we use personal data,”, Microsoft’s privacy policy states (emphasis added):
Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to:
- Provide our products, which includes updating, securing, and troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also includes sharing data, when it is required to provide the service or carry out the transactions you request.
- Improve and develop our products.
- Personalize our products and make recommendations.
- Advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising, and presenting you with relevant offers.
- We also use the data to operate our business, which includes analyzing our performance, meeting our legal obligations, developing our workforce, and doing research.
In carrying out these purposes, we combine data we collect from different contexts (for example, from your use of two Microsoft products) or obtain from third parties to give you a more seamless, consistent, and personalized experience, to make informed business decisions, and for other legitimate purposes.
To their credit, Microsoft’s Skype does not sell personal data to third parties, so Skype’s tweet is accurate. The company uses the data it collects on its own to improve Microsoft services. The company does, however, use data collected from third parties, so it isn’t completely clean of third-party data collection.
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