Cue: Get Off My Cloud, by the Rolling Stones, 1965.

     I want to file a Class Action Lawsuit against Microsoft for hijacking users’ data and copying it onto their Cloud (One Drive) without permission.  This is so annoying.  Not only does Microsoft engage in this criminal behavior, but they ask the users to pay for their intrusion ! Research suggests that legal consent is bundled into the Microsoft Services Agreement, but users never explicitly agree to OneDrive alone; it’s buried in the bundled agreement.  Theoretically, we users implicitly accept the use of One Drive as long as we use it; and if we don’t want it, we can “opt out.”  However, opting out is neither simple nor, ultimately, even possible.  I have uninstalled One Drive, but it still haunts my computer and interferes with what I want to do.  It is always there, prompting me to save documents there, even after I have not only “uninstalled” but directed Word/Options to save documents not to One Drive, but to my local folders (which I had to rename, in order to unlink them from One Drive\Documents).  One Drive is so hard-wired into the foundations of Microsoft Office and Word that it amounts to a very annoying piracy scam.  Compared with Microsoft’s One Drive scam, Medicare Advantage looks like a harmless Bingo game.  One Drive is an aggravating nuisance, out of which I cannot opt.

     Here is one example ~ after trying to get One Drive off of my cloud, I discovered that Word could no longer find my document templates.  I have specified the location of my templates in two locations under Word/Options, and I even have a dedicated entry in the Registry telling Word where to find my templates, but unless I restore those templates to the One Drive, Word is unable to find them.  

     Why do I object to having my documents on Microsoft’s Cloud ?  It’s not really a matter of privacy ~ I am not a terrorist, planning to blow up the Pentagon.  [By the way ~ what is worse: threatening to blow up the Pentagon, or daring to criticize the State of Israel’s campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people, or advocating the use of LSD to raise consciousness, something that is desperately needed in today’s world ?]  But there is a principle involved, and even money ~ I keep getting dunning letters from Microsoft, telling me that I have to buy more storage space for their stupid One Drive cloud ~ apparently there is a free limit of 5GB, and after that you have to pay annually for more storage.  This is an outrage !  In my Class Action Lawsuit, I want to demand that Microsoft pay users $1000 per year for every 5GB of data they hijack and copy off to their cloud.  I could use the money.  For anything less ~ Hey, Microsoft, Get Off My Cloud !  

Curriculum Vitae ~ links about the Author and his work.