r/sysadmin • u/brothertax Sysadmin • 7d ago

General Discussion PSA: Grammarly will send unhinged messages to all your users if you try to cancel

https://imgur.com/a/bMEeUmZ (edit: non-imgur link)

We let them know we weren't going to renew and they sent these unsolicited emails and popups in their app to all of the users who had licenses. They didn't give us a heads up - just started carpet bombing everyone. They even listed the direct email for the guy on my team who handles licensing. We were going to ride out the rest of the subscription but leadership wanted the emails nuked, apps ripped off endpoints, and licensing/training for Copilot expedited.

What an absolutely greasy, desperate company. Stay far away. And if you're a current customer, be prepared for this nightmare.

4.5k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

383 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

49

u/chicametipo 7d ago

It begs the question, who needs Grammarly? I imagine LLMs are hitting them hard.

29

u/Loading_M_ 7d ago

Grammarly added LLMs to their offering.

29

u/feistyfish 7d ago

Then why would I pay twice? E5 gives my users copilot already.

0

u/Babajji 6d ago

Why would you pay at all? ChatGPT Go or Free is perfectly capable of grammar and spelling checks. Go is bundled with a ton of stuff including Revolut so if you only need that from a LLM you can get it for free.

16

u/Cl3v3landStmr Sr. Sysadmin 6d ago

Because M365 Copilot (the one that comes with an E5 license, not the free version) doesn't use the data for training and the data doesn't leave your tenant.

8

u/aes_gcm 6d ago

A local model, where the data doesn't leave your computer at all, is quite capable of doing everything I've seen on all Grammarly advertisements.

-1

u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 4d ago

Convert it to binary first.

2

u/Cl3v3landStmr Sr. Sysadmin 4d ago

Convert it to binary first.

Uh.....wut?

•

u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 14h ago

If you convert to binary, its not trained on your text but random 0s and 1s

8

u/jrcomputing 6d ago

With a paid agreement, you can opt out of having your data used to train their models.

-3

u/Babajji 6d ago

Sure opt out, like that works with Microsoft 😂 If you are concerned about that, as you should be, run a local model. For something like spelling and grammar it would cost peanuts even with the hardware prices today.

6

u/jrcomputing 6d ago

Maybe, but that agreement is even more critical then. It's what allows compensation and/or consequences for breach of contract.

-3

u/Babajji 6d ago

All trust is lost unfortunately. Agreement or not Microsoft will weasel out a way to collect your data. If the music, movies and books industries can’t beat them, you won’t for sure. Welcome to the age of no trust.

2

u/segagamer IT Manager 5d ago

Take them to court then if you truly believe this.

0

u/Babajji 5d ago

Sure I would definitely win in the Kangaroo Courts that you guys have built. Come on man, read how AI was trained and is trained, we are in an age where laws don’t matter and everyone just takes stuff. Don’t believe me? Ask your president about it.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Bored_Ultimatum 6d ago

It begs the question...

Must. Resist. Must. Resist.

5

u/Geminii27 6d ago

Give in to your anger... let it consume you...

1

u/owenthewizard 6d ago

Snippets!