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Comment by eightysixfour | Hacker News Reader

I agree, most of us have built applications that capture plenty of telemetry data about how the application is being used to improve the product using OTS tools or SaaS solutions. Of course Microsoft is going to do the same thing, they've even built their own tooling for it so it isn't going to some other provider.

Is there a particular company size when you suddenly can't collect telemetry because of the privacy implications? Why aren't they allowed to compete using the same tools as everyone else?

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It's pretty obvious that as a company gets larger and more powerful, their potential for abuse grows. This comment is funny considering it's about Microsoft of all companies.

Microsoft's telemetry practices SHOULD DEFINITELY be more heavily scrutinized than other companies.

I don't know, I find the double standards in this space concerning sometimes.

Your website uses Fathom which focuses on privacy but doesn't have any third party auditing of that claim (searched their site for "audit", no results). Why do you trust them to do the right thing with my browsing data when I visit your website? What are you using the data for, to improve the site and create content more people are interested in? Why can't Microsoft do that do to improve their applications?

I don't say all of this to downplay the importance of knowing that things are collecting telemetry and shipping it off somewhere but we can't just have a blanket statement of "you can't do it once you're big enough to abuse it" be our guiding policy either.

I would say that company size is any size. Being small is not an excuse from violating your users' privacy and confidence.

This is true. A doctor's office of one still has to adhere to HIPAA privacy rules. Why should a software developer of any size get a pass?

Because they've been getting a pass for years and it's painful to give up something that you've been doing. Oh, wait, you're telling me that's not a valid reason?

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