Trying to gather data about your product performance and use is "normal". The fact it's been always happening is also "normal". The fact you do more of it because of technology doesn't make it less normal. Is it abnormal you can shop for groceries 5 miles away with your car, because you wouldn't be able to by foot? What kind of a silly thought process is that.
Probably companies haven't been able to serve billions of individuals worldwide, so they had less data. Microsoft has more customers, and has more data to process.
No one here is describing WTF is this "data" harming them personally with. It's not personally identifiable, and it's extremely mundane. Surely Microsoft will destroy your life by having some stats on how often people in a given region play Solitaire.