You are right. A few years ago, googleupdate.exe would scan all your hard drives, it would be interesting to know what they did with all that data.

That's why I spent several hundred dollars on a copy of Windows. But can you imagine my reaction when Microsoft secretly installed tracking software to collect my personal data!?

Some times when I open up a new app, copy something into clipboard, or search on the web, there will be outgoing connections to akamai / microsoft servers.

I'm currently migrating to Linux because of this.