The Register, a good source of tech news, is reporting that a developer was shocked after he was approached by a Microsoft Azure reseller shortly after firing up an instance of a Ubuntu (Linux) VM on Azure for some testing.
When he checked the small print, it did say that using the services would trigger sharing of the data with ‘Publishers’ but the real shock was that the contact was made via a personal LinkedIn account (which of course Microsoft own) rather than through the corporate email address he had given.
So ite seems that the reseller took the route of a personal contact in the hope of getting a better response, which must have involved a little manual effort and searching … unless that sort of thing is being automated these days at MS?
The developer is cited as saying they are looking at a provider based in Europe, where the approach to data privacy is different. Score one point for GDPR, perhaps?