Outlook got updated on my iPhone last night and now they want me to agree to having my data shared with 807 partners.
Important note: I don’t use outlook as my primary email provider. I use Proton with a custom domain but I keep outlook for some old emails.
It’s not that they now changed something with data collection and sharing within the update. They always did it, all services free of charge do it and most that cost money likely take the extra money as well.
It’s now that they tell you in a short and informative way (1st sentence) and ask for your consent.
What’s really infuriating, are websites and services that have an “Accept All” button but no “Reject All”. Instead you have to manage individually and sometimes I have to flip 30 separate buttons to disable data sharing, where they even call advertisers a ‘necessary 3rd party’ requiring interaction on top.
I always flip the 30 buttons and then accidentally click Accept All because it’s in the place that I would expect the Confirm My Choices button to be and I am tired of looking at all the buttons and don’t read the most important one. I always tell myself I’ll slow down next time, but I’m just trying to get to the stupid website to read whatever stupid link I clicked on so I’m impatient every time.
This is by design. It’s called dark patterns.
That was a loophole to the original GDPR. That’s now against the law in the EU, but bringing cases against all these sites is time consuming.