People will look fondly to the times when they thought Microsoft's telemetry was the worst privacy issue to hit them...
Take a look at the privacy settings in your Microsoft account, specifically the activity history. They collect very much the same stuff that Google does, only Google lets you disable the data collection and Microsoft doesn't.
Windows on the PC gives me clear options immediately after installation to disable all that and what's left is the "basic" telemetry, which is very light data collection according to today's standards. At least there's nothing personal there. Also I can very well use the PC without a MS account (so far).
On the mobile side... Is MS still into that? Myself along with probably 5 other people do have a Windows 10 mobile phone but again, the privacy wizard apparently did a great job to disable most of the collection of data. And when I go to Settings > Privacy > Location and I disable it it's disabled.
But yeah, this is the kind of ignorant BS that got all of us here in the first place. As long as there's a critical mass of ignorance on the market the likes of Google know they'll always have someone to sell to so they shove this down everyone's throat. MS makes money by selling you the products. Google gives you everything for free. Not raising any flags?
>MS makes money by selling you the products. Google gives you everything for free. Not raising any flags?
Microsoft makes money in all sorts of ways, among them free and ad funded services like Bing, Skype or LinkedIn.
But yes it does raise flags. That's why - as a paying Office 365 (for Mac) subscriber - I was expecting to have more control over data collection than as a user of ad funded services, not less.
First, MS doesn't exist on the mobile side. This might sound irrelevant until you realize that a phone has the potential to be a much more powerful data pump.
Second, most Windows installations aren't tied to a MS account. As such no data can be linked to it and to you in person.
Third, you see this screen (a few settings are off-screen)? [1] It actually disables most data collection, like location. It doesn't just hide it from the dashboard and have you disable it "again" in 3 more places like Google was shown to do these days. Just by disabling Cortana you get rid of most data collection that can be tied to you.
This is the first thing I do on any Windows machine. Between this and the fact that I don't have to log in with a MS account means that my MS activity dashboard only includes my explicit browser logins and this:
We don’t have any data associated with this Microsoft account at the moment.
Or this:
There’s nothing to see here yet. To add some interests in this category, open Cortana’s Notebook on your device.
[1] https://www.bleepstatic.com/images/news/companies/m/microsof...
And here's the point you are in fact missing or rather denying: Microsoft does collect tons of very personal data as well, not just performance data. You are acknowledging as much when you say that disabling it is the first thing you do on any Windows machine.
Most people will never change the defaults, and Microsoft is pushing extremely hard to make all users of their software log in to a Microsoft account. A lot of Office 365 functionality makes no sense without being logged in. So it is important what privacy settings there are, what the defaults are and what you can or cannot disable.
But I think the reason why we are talking past each other is that I don't use Windows. I don't have the settings in your screenshot. I was comparing the settings in my online Microsoft account to the settings in my Google account.
If your main point is that Google is far more dependent on collecting as much personal data as they possibly can than Microsoft, then I fully agree with that. But that makes it all the more baffling why Microsoft behaves so much like Google when it comes to data collection.
Google opened the way for collecting massive amounts of data by any means possible (including and not limited to tricking the user into thinking they aren't). And people seem pretty at ease with this, comparatively few are as angered by the revelations these days as they were about MS's relatively harmless telemetry.
So going back, at some point you'll miss the times when you thought MS collecting data about your hardware and drivers was "the evilest evil".
MS and Windows 10 are still far behind Google in the data collection game. Especially since they put that privacy wizard front and center at the first setup.
But as I said, every second you spend defending Google and throwing shade at MS because it feels like the cool thing to do, Google adds another data collection item in their policy, hides yet another setting under 5 layers of options, and tricks you again into thinking that toggling a switch to off actually disables it.
It's not like they did exactly that for 10 years now to the point where they are by far the largest private data collection effort in the history of man kind.
And yes, I'm sure MS will follow suit. Why not? Google seems to be doing just fine.
Luckily, in both cases, free/open source software exists to fix both PC's and (some) cellphones!