Let's take a hypothetical example of where you assign a given user a random ID, based on something (machine ID). You then track what this user is doing, in general, in the operating system.
You can find data points such as what % of users discover/use X feature, how many pin applications to the taskbar, use X app with Y app, have night mode enabled, etc.
This allows you to expend resources where they are actually needed, to improve the features that the majority of people would find benefit in.
And at the end of the day, none of the above features require knowing anything about WHO that person is. Sure, they can be classified into groups based on how they use the software, such as "business user", "power user", or "gamer" ... but not "John Doe at 123 Main Street, Hollywood, California".
This is likely all for product improvement and not for $$$. Why do they subject end-users and not opt-in testers for this? To get real world data at scale.
It's a relatively new addition to the landscape and Windows isn't any better or easier to use than the 2000/XP days - at least in ways which telemetry would influence - the genuine improvements are all obvious wins like display compositing, kernel stability, etc.
It also dismisses the point that by including telemetry you've excluded some users, and your automated collection won't be aware of it at all in many cases.
Some won't ever use Windows 10 as a main desktop OS because it attempts to spy on them. They won't recommend it to others or develop for it either.
Other power users will use it, but will opt out. So your telemetry is now completely biased towards non-power-users.
This isn't sour grapes - I wouldn't be using Windows anyway because I'm a free software advocate - I just wonder if they've realised that the incentives line up to effectively ignore some of their "best" users.
It makes loads of sense, to me. It started with the Customer Experience Improvement Program, WAY back in the Windows 2000 era, if I recall, which you would see an option to enable or disable when you installed a Microsoft SDK. They clearly saw benefit from this information, so they expanded it to include the whole OS.
This collects lots of data for them, which helps them understand the usage of their products better, and a nice side benefit is that they can use the knowledge gained by organizing and inspecting this data in their "big data" offerings on Azure and in other places internally.
The greatest benefit of Microsoft's telemetry to others is that everyone focuses on MICROSOFT's telemetry, argues about MICROSOFT's telemetry, debates MICROSOFT's telemetry, endlessly, while literally 90% of the rest of the software you use (99.9% if you count software you use that isn't on your computer, like servers, routers, web sites, and so on) collects telemetry, also, even when you think you've turned it off. Nearly every game you have installed on your phone collects FAR more about you than Microsoft has ever dared try to collect, and no one knows or gives a damn because "OMFG MICROSOFT I HATE MICROSOFT
I don't care if they collect usage information from me. I truly don't. The entire Internet is trying to make me feel like I should care about usage data that originates from my computer, but I don't. I don't feel like it's my data if it truly is telemetric data about software usage.
I would use more free software if more of it were good enough to use. Of course, a lot of free software is GREAT, and I use a lot of that stuff, rather than paid alternatives.
How can you be so sure? Between IP addresses and what wireless networks are available you can get a decently precise location for the majority of users. And this is assuming you don't just capture the address and name when they type it in.
Okay, so maybe they aren't using it for evil yet. How many times has a large corporation been able to indefinitely resist the pull of an alternative revenue stream where the majority of the cost has already been paid?
Agreed. They are mining and storing a mineral (our data) that they may enrich and sell (or lose via theft) one day in the future. This is the worrying part. This is a direct violation of GDPR which states that if you don't need the private data for an explicit purpose for the user (not your company) then you are not allowed to keep it.
They are collecting usage-stats, aggregated data, in a way which deliberately has been decoupled from your identity so they won’t have to face the kind of liability issues you just mentioned.
If anything, MS seems like one of the few big actors in IT which “gets” GDPR, and they are using it their advantage in the enterprise market.
Of course unwanted telemetry (no matter how anonymized) is going to taint that image somewhat.
If they'd like to give me some consideration for my data I'd be happy to entertain their offer. (Being granted the right to use the software, in cases where I'm paying for the license, doesn't constitute consideration to me.)
Not alleging there is such transparency here, just raising the question. It always seems like even anonymous telemetry is considered harmful, and I don't understand why that is from a conceptual standpoint.
There's probably, like, a particular way I move the mouse from the bottom left to the top right corner of my screen. A 'mouse cursor gait', if you will.
To be frank though, there doesn't need to be a reason. You're treating this as a Stockholm-syndrome esque situation - I don't need to use Windows, I definitely don't need to justify why I don't like certain aspects of it.
Some people do need to use Windows for various reasons. Consider yourself lucky if you don’t.
Do you own that data? Where do you draw the line?
The reason they might want to just collect all data without asking is that there's a chance that making it opt-in could cause bigger bias problems in the data you collect. For example, what if "power users" are significantly more or less likely to opt-in? You could end up with a very distorted view of what features are most popular, or are giving people the most trouble.
Not saying that this concern is well-founded (I really don't know), or that this choice makes sense from a business perspective (I'm skeptical). Definitely not saying that this is the ethical choice to make (it isn't). Just trying to shed light on a possible thought process.
From - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/16/microsoft_gdpr/
"...[Microsoft] also recommends simply not using the web-only version of Office 365, or SharePoint Oneline. And it recommends periodically deleting the Active Directory accounts of VIP users and creating new accounts for them so that the diagnostic data associated with those accounts is eventually deleted."
Seriously, we should be deleting and recreating accounts in our own fucking domain to keep the data anonymous? Why is that on us?
They have you AD account info, and diagnostic data directly tied to it. There's no anonymization going on here at all. They're gathering it recklessly.
Also from that link:
"Much of what Microsoft collects is diagnostics, the researchers found, and it has seemingly tried to make the system GDPR compliant by storing Office documents on servers based in the EU. But it also collected other data that contained private information and some of that data still ended up on US servers."
That is clearly about money.
> to improve the features that the majority of people would find benefit in.
> This is likely all for product improvement and not for $$$.
Read those sentences again. They are doing it so they can make $$$, whether that means nefariously using your data for advertising/tracking OR improving the product, it 100% translates into making money for them. Improving the product means they continue to sell the product you continually pay for.
I think you're missing the overall point - any for-profit entity that tells you it won't infringe your rights, will eventually infringe on your rights. Especially one that takes $110B/yr in revenue. I'd be happy to share countless stories of for-profit entities, especially in tech, that do this.
> 1: Using customer data to improve your product, to make them happier paying for it, which makes $$$
> 2: Using customer data to sell to someone else or to sell the user's attention, which makes $$$
The extra level of indirection through a product that you deliver to the user that provides value to them makes a huge difference between these two ethically.
That said, I will admit that a company can move from 1 to 2 completely seamlessly, without the knowledge of the user. A bean counter, unscrupulous wallstreet exec, or changing priorities may take something that was intended to only ever be 1 and turn it into 2. This risk may be too high for you and that's your call to judge, but I find it hard to fault a company just for trying to improve their product.
I do wish more companies took Apple's "differential privacy" approach which allows the data collection technology itself to draw a hard line between 1 and 2 that can't be crossed invisibly.
Nor do I. So the argument thusly is -> why make the opt-in/out so difficult to manage (e.g. dark patterns)?
> This allows you to expend resources where they are actually needed, to improve the features that the majority of people would find benefit in.
Let me give you a different idea. Instead of allowing you to expend resources where they are actually needed, it allows you to (often incorrectly) guess what users are trying to do.
Product improvement? You're not improving the product at all if you're not directly engaging the user.
It's the same excuse always. Nowadays everyone suddenly needs tracking for everything, from softwares to TVs and cars.
‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;
And how does the IP address (unlesss coupled with other data) identify you personally (as opposed to your PC or company network)? Hint: it doesn’t.
Also: if the IP you send to everyone on the internet is “your” personal, private data, who owns that data when your DHCP lease expires and someone else gets it? See how that doesn’t work? At all? Good good.
Yeah that IP address, unless coupled with other data, says nothing about you personally. I thought this much would be blatantly obvious to anyone even remotely competent on a techie site like HN.
In short: it doesn’t work that way which you hysterical anti-GDPR fanatics are mindlessly repeating.
If so, we’d have to shut down the entire internet and ban all server logs.
Those kinds of effects are hard to measure and quantify even if they are critically important to the long term success of a company, whereas the revenue from whatever they're doing with this data is directly reflected in their quarterly earnings report.
Roku devices are far and away the noisiest devices on my network.
Android seems pretty awful too, the higher the version number the more noisy it gets.
All of my Windows machines are running with the lowest level of telemetry that Microsoft permits you to set, I don't use any of those reg hacks hosted on github. Interestingly a Windows 7 laptop is much noisier than a Windows 10 laptop. Surprisingly Windows Server 2012r2 makes the shit list too. What's strange though is an always on Windows 10 desktop isn't even on the list.
Interestingly Amazon Echo and Google Nest DNS traffic is rarely blocked despite them being the top clients (behind Roku) by a fair margin.
The DNS logs for my home network are full of proprietary stuff.
All of my actual work systems do queries when I use them and that's it. Extremely rarely there'll be a hit out to NTP.
It's quite amusing, because by percentage, the systems I use 8 hours a day are barely even represented in the logs (contrast with my Android phone attempting to hit Google DNS and being prevented by the firewall, over and over, _forever_.)
If MS is making money from this, the last thing anyone involved in it will do is tell you how much.
I was made aware of this from blackviper.com, a great place for windows service configuration information and reccomendations.
Its dumb, dangerous to users and I hope they will get a massive slap on the wrists. But Win10 is out for long time and nothing is happening.
I think it would benefit large companies like Microsoft to realise that this sort of behaviour has knock-on effects. Every MS product is tainted by this because it ultimately has effects on trust.
If it's not making them, or can't be linked to, significant amounts of revenue, it would surely be beneficial in terms of customer numbers to stop doing this. Why?
I don't understand, or believe, that they're making significant amounts from this. It feels like bean-counter style decision making that doesn't take in to account the wider picture.
Anyone from MS willing to chime in?