Microsoft accused over Copilot installs

Mozilla picked a very specific fight with Microsoft this week: not over whether artificial intelligence tools are useful, but over whether Windows users ever clearly asked for Copilot to be there in the first place. In a post published April 9, Mozilla said Microsoft has been using interface tricks and hardware defaults to steer people into Copilot the same way it previously steered them into Edge. (blog.mozilla.org) The core complaint is simple. Microsoft’s own support page says new Windows 11 personal computers should come with the Copilot app installed by default, and users should find it pinned to the taskbar or the Start menu when they first open the machine. (support.microsoft.com) Mozilla says that crosses the line from “feature” to “forced placement.” Its examples include Copilot showing up without a user prompt, living in prime screen space by default, and arriving through Windows design choices that make Microsoft’s own tools feel built-in while alternatives feel optional. (blog.mozilla.org) One of the sharpest examples is not even on the screen. In January 2024, Microsoft announced a physical Copilot key for new Windows 11 keyboards, which means a dedicated button can launch the assistant the way an old keyboard might have launched a calculator. (blogs.windows.com) That matters because defaults are powerful even when they are removable. Microsoft now lets some users remap that key in Windows settings, but the system still frames the button around artificial intelligence apps rather than treating “no assistant at all” as the normal starting point. (pcworld.com) The timing is awkward for Microsoft because it has already started backing away from some of the most visible Copilot branding inside Windows. In recent Windows Insider builds, Notepad dropped the Copilot label and icon in favor of a more generic “Writing tools” menu, which keeps the text-generation features but makes the assistant less omnipresent. (engadget.com) That rollback is not a full retreat. Reports on the Insider changes say the artificial intelligence functions remain inside Notepad and other apps even as the Copilot name is removed, so Microsoft is cleaning up the presentation more than removing the underlying system. (windowslatest.com) At the same time, Microsoft is still giving workplace administrators tools to push Copilot closer to users. Microsoft Learn says information technology admins can pin the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to the Windows 11 taskbar on managed devices, and new work computers signed in with Microsoft Entra accounts can show that app pinned by default. (learn.microsoft.com 1) (learn.microsoft.com 2) A second argument is opening in Europe, and it is about where Copilot handles requests rather than where the icon sits. Microsoft says a feature called “flex routing” will let large language model inferencing for some European Union and European Free Trade Association customers happen outside the European Union Data Boundary during peak demand, unless administrators change the setting. (learn.microsoft.com) Microsoft says stored data stays inside the European Union Data Boundary except for limited pseudonymized data used for security and operations, and it says data is encrypted in transit and at rest. But the company also says flex routing is meant to keep Copilot responsive by allowing some processing to leave the region, which is exactly the kind of cross-border handling that privacy teams scrutinize under the General Data Protection Regulation. (learn.microsoft.com) So this is not just a complaint about an annoying button in Windows 11. Mozilla is trying to turn Copilot into the next test of whether Microsoft can use its control of the desktop to make its own assistant feel unavoidable, while regulators and enterprise customers ask a second question about where the prompts go after users click. (blog.mozilla.org) (learn.microsoft.com)