Here's the first part under "How we use personal data" in their privacy statement:
Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to:
* Provide our products, which includes updating, securing, and troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also includes sharing data, when it is required to provide the service or carry out the transactions you request. * Improve and develop our products. * Personalize our products and make recommendations. * Advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising, and presenting you with relevant offers.
So, points one and two are nice. Three might be nice, but really depends on the motivation for the personalization and recommendations. Four is full on, deep advertising.
BTW, you may want to make a distinction between your personal data and telemetry, but MS does not make any such distinction. Also, in the next section, MS notes they'll share your data with anyone they want.
Talk about head in the sand.
I can be anti-advertising and pro-privacy without being anti-telemetry.
I want my OS maker to ask for stack traces so they can fix crashes. I do not want this to be a default with no way to opt out. Even crash data is my data, not Microsoft's, and Microsoft should ask my permission each time it happens the way that MacOS does.
Then again, that might make people aware of how often programs go sideways on Windows, which is not in Microsoft's interest.
The user's opinions and desires are not on anybody's radar at MS, except to then extent that they coincide with the company's own desires.
Maybe there's an "always remember my selection" checkbox, but I don't remember ever seeing it, except once a year when I install the new version of macOS.
And switching between Basic and Full levels of telemetry in settings doesn't help too much. According to BSI (project SiSyPHuS), number of event providers for Basic telemetry level is 410, and for Full level there are 422 ETW providers.
Specifically, it has the option to enable a "Diagnostic Data Viewer" that shows the data it sends (as JSON). I've just enabled that, so there is not much to see, but so far it has only transmitted version information of OS software components.
(Mini-) crash dumps can contain all kinds of information but that is kind of unavoidable. As a developer, I'm gratefull whenever I get a core/crash dump, but yes, it shouldn't be automatic.
Here's a full list of data it seems to send https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/windows-dia... (at full telemetry level)
Windows 10, when left alone for 1 year, sends about 4.5 Gb of outgoing data. There are no apps running all this time, so there are no crash reports to submit.
For decades I have used personal computers and it was my machine and nobody constantly observed what I was doing with it. With "telemetry" I'm not sure about the relation anymore - do I own the machine or does the machine own me? It's a loss of control, I'm not able to make the decisions anymore about what happens and what doesn't.
In Germany, such "spying" features are really detested; there exists a very privacy-conscious culture that perhaps has to do with the experience of two surveillance states on German ground of which one only ceased to exist about 30 years ago.
To give an example: When at the regular's table of some group (details shall not matter) someone suggested to form a WhatsApp group, some people gave very direct and harsh words.
I personally observe that when I think about buying something at Amazon, I ask myself and look whether there also exists another possible vendor.
So the mentality that I described is in real - it's just not possible to avoid said "Facebook/YouTube/Amazon/$FAANGCORP" completely for now; so you look for areas where you can avoid them - step by step.
.. but even anecdotal evidence. I says nothing about the general situation. Personally. I never felt the need for FB. For a few years now my - large - family is running Threema. All of them, even the old folk. This is good for us, but especially the youngsters have parallel installations of WA, Signal, Telegram etc..
This is also anecdotal and I'm afraid, not typical. Some months ago I became member of a Skat club (a popular german card game). All the people are very different in social beckground to me and even to each other - real estate shark, musician, blue collar worker and more - and know what?
> some people gave very direct and harsh words.
I got these words for NOT accepting WA. Eventually, we settled to Signal - but even that not unanimously and it remains a slightly frustrating communication model.
Why do you think this is even needed? Every software package used by more users than nobody (by Joel Spolsky definition) has their bug report system full of bugs, and solving them would take years of doing nothing but butfixing. Your telemetry won't help prioritizing them, or even lead to solving them, but it will be mined for info that can be used to monetize your behavior.
I find it troubling that anyone thinks that a user must have a "legitimate need" (whatever that is) to justify not wanting to be spied on. Simply not wanting your machine to send data to should be more than enough of a need.
> edit: To clarify, users should be able to disable telemetry
Oh, then we are completely on the same page. It appeared that you were arguing in favor of forced telemetry for "average PC users".
Respect begets respect. If Microsoft gave me the choice to disable telemetry, I would probably leave it on. The fact that they don't give me that choice motivates me to find a third-party tool to disable it, if only as a way to express my annoyance.
Yes, I know, I'm not representative of the vast majority of users.
Several governments and their regulators in the EU are currently at various stages of looking into this issue, because it may be literally impossible to be GDPR compliant if you're processing personal data on a system running a Windows 10 edition that requires this stuff. And that's just the literally-breaking-the-law part as it relates to personal data in general. You might also have contractual obligations like NDAs, or perhaps some more specific legal obligations to protect data if you work in healthcare, finance, national security, etc.
Do you really believe yourself to be the ultimate arbiter of that question, for all PC users? Or just for the average ones?
I didn't mean to imply that said user shouldn't have the option to disable telemetry, even for no reason at all.
You make that sound like a bad thing, when it's not.
MS deciding they control what my computer does, rather than me - the owner - is fundamentally just not on.
The concept is extremely basic. No idea why many other people seem to not grasp it, let alone MS. :(
edit: To clarify, users should be able to disable telemetry - it's the anti-telemetry rhetoric I find to be overblown - in general what I hear isn't nearly as nuanced as the replies here, it's simply blanket opposition to all telemetry.