Putting on my trusting hat, I would think that MS is only transmitting enough data to keep the machine running and virus free without any intervention from the non-technical people. So it would be a safe machine for a small company without any IT staff. A lot of those companies just take the computer out of the box and plug it in and don't do anything further anyway.

I don't see why they don't just add the option to disable that with appropriate labeling, though, if nothing else to satisfy the more vocal, privacy-concerned folks.