Probably the same pick me they put in charge of Xbox.
Only one team working to make Teams worse???
They’re asking Copilot for help, so have achieved 10x productivity.
They have achieved higher productivity by not using teams themselves.
You’ve got it reversed. Switching to Teams greatly hastened development, as the team’s newfound vitriol and frustration could be channeled toward the end user in a neverending feedback loop.
Literally! They were told to return to office to achieve higher productivity (it was circling the news around September?)
Yes they had an all hands Teams Meeting to say that the Teams Team could no longer work on Teams using Teams remotely from home. Now they need to be part of a team by working in Teams on Teams remotely all over the world from a corporate location.
I read this in the Denholm Reynholm voice: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ejjtlnZOdgo
It was obviously just a corpo stealth layoff but imagine being told as a Teams developer that Teams is not good enough for remote work
Zoom literally did this already
But zoom sucks worse than Teams so I don’t blame them
Just one team working on Teams, and they are doing their best to make it worse.
I for one encourage them, it apparently needs to be even worse before my work will consider changing
yaeh… team Microslop…
They are called stakeholders.
And is why we don’t use Microsoft products.
Honestly, I would screen potential employers by whether they are a Microsoft shop or not. Fuck ‘em.
nice to have that sort of freedom, since the majority of companies use some Microsoft products
- That’s a luxury that not everyone enjoys.
- They all use some form of spyware, if only for email.
i thought the same, but now working at a place using google/slack/zoom isn’t much better. pretty much all corporate software is feature creep bloated slop these days.
Literally zero problems with slack and goog (at corpo). Security opted out of AI shit and that was it.
Riiight. And what makes you trust Googles word so fervently?
This is what I gathered on the subject, feel free to correct if anything is wrong:
The WiFi tracking works by scanning for nearby WiFi networks, identifying which routers are nearby and their signal strengths, matching those against their database of known WiFi access points, and using that data to estimate your location.
For now the feature will be off by default, first has to be enabled by your company, and then the user has to opt in for it to be used.
For those who are required to use Microsoft products, it can by bypassed by using a wired Ethernet connection and not using Teams on any devices using a wireless connection.
That doesn’t at all match the documentation.
The organization will configure a list of Wi-Fi SSIDs. When your device connects to one of those, the Teams location would be updated to “in the office”.
That’s it. No complex triangulation, no pinpoint locating. Just “are you connected to the office network or not”.
Also, if you don’t want to be tracked in this way, just don’t participate. If your organization sets a policy to opt you in automatically, click the option to opt out. If they give the offer to opt in, just don’t.
I know it’s hip to hate on Microsoft, but we should at least discuss things based on the truth, not wild assumptions and misinformation.
Thanks for the clarification. I wrongly assumed Microsoft was using Wi-Fi positioning systems (which is used for geolocation, just not in this particular case) instead of reading their documentation.
I’ll update the comment.
I also don’t think most workplaces are going to punish you for opting out of this feature even if organizational policy requires it to be enabled.
Please add _nomap to the end of your SSID (the name of your wifi network) if you don’t want Google to use it in their tracking mechanisms.
Please add _optout anywhere in your SSID if you don’t want Microsoft to use it in their tracking mechanisms.
If your SSID is Network change it to Network_optout_nomap
Ridiculous as fuck, but that’s what they came up with. I have no idea what other services use to block their Wifi collectors, but these 2 are very prominent anyway.
same go for the web browser based teams, or is this just the “app”?
The browser version shouldn’t be able to access this info.
Until Edge updates and silently turns it on
Unlikely, browser vendors are very careful adding such APIs, and MS doesn’t have the pull Google does.
A simple fix is, of course, not to use Edge.
So basically the same every Android phone does. Google has done this kind of tracking since 2007
Windows itself already does this type of tracking to determine your time zone.
Yes but now it reports to your employer.
I don’t quite get the uproar for this.
The issue is your employees trying to force RTO. Whether this goes through or is cancelled - your employer will still want to track your RTO.
The only solution, if you are privileged enough, is to work somewhere else.
I did. I make less but I have more free time, and less stress. My employer doesn’t give a fuck where I am so long as the work gets done.
I look forward to this feature being deployed in hospitals. It’s going to fail so hard and generate so many tickets.
Why?
Is it important that their team’s location be up to date?
Surely a hospital has better methods for tracking independently of teams
So many other apps do this already, including the OS. This is changing your Teams status for you, so coworkers can see if you’re in the office or not.
If your hybrid wfh office has any sort of reservation system then this is likely already happening.
Having Teams remind you that, during session recordings, your video and what you say can be used by Microsoft for whatever purpose they want, including (but not limited to) training AI.
This wasn’t the line that was crossed? Seeing/hearing your likeness in the next generated AI / copilot commercial, because you needed to consent in order to work. This is “fine” /s
… but having Microsoft know that you’re answering Teams messages while on the toilet… yeah, that’s where “the line gets crossed” (eyeroll)
We need to wake-up and drop this technological cancer.
edit: a word
“It’s okay, because it’s Microsoft” is management’s response when I raise a concern at work.
Heaven forbid you use an open source tool that isn’t on the software whitelist yet
“It’s okay, because it’s Microsoft”
“You mean the mass surveillance corporation under the control of the nazis?”
Of course there is, this guy leads it
So glad I only use Teams in a browser, fuck this bullshit.
Don’t install Teams.
You can’t even install it on Linux, they killed the native app years ago and now tell you to use the browser version
The Linux client never worked in my experience anyway. In no coincidence, their Teams in browser never seemed to work in Linux either until a little after they killed the native app. I wonder if there were enough important clients that needed support for it and they caved and made it work.
And then every link asks if you want to open in app, three extra clicks but worth it
I don’t install anything that’s not FOSS anymore. Pretty much all of it is spyware at this point, because they can monetize it, and because users don’t give a fuck.
Good news is, most of the time, you don’t have to.
Teams comes pre installed with windows these days.
I recommend KDE Plasma on any linux distribution that comes with it for people interested in recovering their digital sovereignty.
There is a difference betwen the version for corporate (MS365 Business) and the consumer version.
Yes, they have the same name.
Yes, it’s confusing.If people moved to Linux and used FOSS software, these privacy violations wouldn’t even be a problem.
If people moved to Linux
When users connect to their organization’s WiFi…
You think my employer would let me use Linux? Creeping on employees is how management feels important.
I wouldn’t use Teams personally unless under extreme duress. Unfortunately professionally it is the norm.
I’m starting to feel like everything I do at work is under duress.
That’s the point, under capitalism.
Disable your laptop webcam and microphone, use headset instead. I’ll be looking to see if I can switch to Teams web.
I remember how a subcontractor’s company called me with a lot of private information I assume the subcontractor had spoken to them about. The subcontractor had no clue about it, which completely changed how I had been perceiving the situation. The problem is companies are using the excuse of keeping tabs on their workers to perform outright continuous surveillance on them and try to see how they can exploit any and all information they can salvage for their benefit, which becomes a problem when there is no clear division between personal and professional space.
For the next year or so.
State law in California (and soon, Colorado), as well as UK and EU laws, are beginning to require OSs to spy on users and developers. Privacy-focused Linux and FOSS software will soon be deemed illegal in these jurisdictions. Which will make it a liability for companies, and force them back to shitty commercial offerings.
Most people who use teams do so on work devices, I can’t just install Linux on it.
I cant even delete a shortcut on my work microslop machine
Yeah, of course.
I’m glad my work PC only operates in flight mode.
“Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in.”
If you require someone to opt-in, they’re no longer “opting in”
But you clicked the terms and conditions popup, so you are our slave now.
There have been teams at Microsoft making everything worse since 1998. Why is this news?
There are ten thousand teams at Microsoft making Teams worse.
Corporations have done this for decades. Literally.
This is you getting extra pissy because someone wrote an article you only half understand to rile you up.
“Everyone else is doing it” is not a good excuse.
This is illegal in Norway :)
And Germany.
