Does the Microsoft Bot Framework "phone home", or otherwise send data to 3rd parties?

Question

So let's say I make a bot and place it in my ASP.NET MVC project. When the user queries the bot, and the bot replies to the user, is any data sent to Microsoft, or other third-parties?

Answer 1

Data goes to the channel you're using; so if you use the Facebook Messenger channel, Slack channel, or another 3rd party (non-MS) channel, data is going to Facebook, or Slack, etc.

CLARIFICATION EDIT: When you use the Bot Connector Service, i.e. when you register a bot at dev.botframework.com and enable any of the channels there, your conversation data will go to Microsoft. Addresing your original question directly; yes, data is sent "home". However, if you use a 3rd party channel, the data is just translated by Microsoft into the channel-specific format, sent to the 3rd party and NOT stored by Microsoft. What the 3rd party does with that data, e.g. use it for mining, store it indefinitely, is up to them.

As indicated below, using Microsoft channels will involve the data being handled and stored temporarily by Microsoft.

If you use any of the Cognitive Services, e.g. LUIS, by signing up for the service you've indicated your willingness to allow Microsoft to retain the data indefinitely and use it for various pursuits, one of them being to improve their products and services. I highly recommend visiting this page and reading through it.

EDIT: LUIS doesn't store the application data for improving its services, the data is stored for use by the developers to improve their own specific models.

EDIT: LUIS also allows developers to add "&log=false" to their endpoint and it will disable logging of data.

When using MS channels like Web Chat, DirectLine and Bing channels, data is retained and the content encrypted for up to 24 hours. This is for queuing and dispatching the messages on these channels.

When you move from dev to production and change from using the Bot State Service to your own storage service, you control the State data. All data on the Bot State Service is encrypted. That said; we encourage developers to move over to their own state service as soon as possible. This can be done by using BotBuilder-Azure which has examples on how to use Table and DocumentDB to manage state as opposed to using the Bot State Service.

Within the Bot Framework itself, conversation data is not used for mining or improving models or anything in the Bot Framework.