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Comment by cptskippy | Hacker News Reader

How many times do we have to go over this...

Telemetry != Tracking

Telemetry data has been gathered since Windows XP and it's gathered in the magical Windows 7. It's not new. It's used to identify problems with their software and how it interacts with users systems. It's also used to understand how users are using the software and what issues they encounter.

Microsoft even provides documentation of everything captured under basic tracking.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/basic...

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> How many times do we have to go over this...

As many times as it takes for people like yourself stop switching the subject and feigning surprised frustration.

It has never been about "telemetry" or "tracking". It's always been about not "phoning home" under pretense du jour.

It is all about _privacy_ and _control_ over one's own computer, the very notions that's been steadily eroded to near oblivion through constant and unyielding pressure from Microsoft et al.

>_control_

You are running several millions of lines of possibly closed source code written by others running on almost definitely closed design hardware. At some level you have to trust your platform.

Trust is not binary. I trust Microsoft not to, say, deliberately weaken Bitlocker. I trust them to generally keep me safe and not turn on my webcam and watch me at night.

It does not mean I trust them building up a profile on me. Someone in this thread said Cortana pops up coupon offers when visiting Dell.com? I do not trust this to not be abused.

It is also about the overton window and shifting people's acceptance of spying, even in innocent forms like crash metrics. I've defended telemetry and used to turn it on for most machines, because it was optional. Making it mandatory is the wrong policy.

It's on by default in 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. It's also on by default in Office since XP.

When was it optional?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're saying XP collected lists of installed apps? And had no way to disable? Citation? This is more than DrWatson/crash reporting.

It reminds me of an old /b/ wheeze:

There was this memetic image called either "Cockmongler" or "Grinman". Which of those names was correct? Why, whichever one the mark didn't use, of course! If the pigeon said "Cockmongler", you had a whole rant ready to copy-paste about how it was always "Grinman" and oldfags know this and /b/ is now cancerous and yadda yadda yadda. Vice-versa in the converse, of course; the point is, the other person is always wrong.

You can apply the same thing to "ship" vs "boat" or "half-staff" vs "half-mast" or "that" vs "which" or any other pair; it's a wonderful way to utterly derail any attempt at discussion involving those terms, or, possibly, the concepts they're attached to.

Agreed. I don't have a problem with telemetry and updates being turned on as by default. What I have a problem with is Microsoft not even giving us the option to turn these features off.

Again, this isn't a new problem and it's actually better in Windows 10 than it's ever been as far as choice.

If the problem is choice, not that the telemetry gathering exists then everyone really needs to reframe their argument because everyone complains first about the collection and then second about the inability to turn it off.

How is it better than ever as far as choice? I can't turn it off!

Really? Sounds like Windows 10 cannot turn of this telemetry stuff. And sends my installed apps. But not allowing turning it off is not excusable. All it does is piss people off and encourage the public to accept phoning home as a fact of life and nothing to see.

As did every other version of Windows since XP.

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